Heartwarming moment wows royals at London Marathon

Every now and again we need to see something that reminds us the world isn’t all that bad.

Little moments of kind-heartedness or mateship are often drowned out by all the negativity.

But there’s one moment of mateship that has the world talking – and it all happened at the London Marathon.

As Prince William, Duchess Catherine and Prince Harry watched on from the sideline, one marathon runner went down just 300 metres from the finish line.

It looked like his race might have been over, but then fellow runner Matthew Rees stopped to lend a hand.

Rees told the BBC he saw fellow runner David Wyeth’s legs collapsing beneath him.

“I went over to him and said ‘come on, you can do this’ and tried to gee him up,” he said.

“But every time he tried to get up, I realised he wasn’t going to make it.

“I said ‘come on – we can do this – we’ll do it together, we’ll cross the line together.”

What happened next has earned Rees praise across the world. He helped Wyeth up, put his arm around his shoulder and helped him the last 300 metres across the line.

The pair were cheered on by the crowd, including the royals!

Wyeth told the BBC he didn’t expect anyone to sacrifice their race for him.

“For someone just to stop their own race to help you, that’s such a decent thing that he did,” he said.

“I was urging him to move on, you know please don’t sacrifice your race for me.”

While Rees is being hailed a hero on social media, he insists all he did was “helped a guy out when he was in need”.

“I’m glad he got to the line, and I’m glad he is okay,” he told the BBC.

“That spirit, it encompasses what running is about and what the marathon is about.”

And the London Marathon agreed, tweeting that Rees “encompassed everything that’s so special about the London Marathon”.

Matthew Rees, of @SwanHarrierDev, you've just encompassed everything that's so special about the #LondonMarathon. We salute you. 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/86Ql4LLBEa

— TCS London Marathon (@LondonMarathon) April 23, 2017

What a kind act!

Do you think the world needs more kind acts like this? Did this make you smile?