Aaron Beggs says video of him and Brazilian Robson De Oliveira helping an exhausted competitor went viral due to a need for feel-good stories.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 24 Apr 2026<\/span>24 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Northern Irish runner who helped carry a collapsed competitor over the finish line of the Boston marathon says the world needed a feel-good story amid pervasive negativity in the news as he reflected on what prompted him to help and why the video of the incident went viral on social media.<\/p>\n The 130th edition of the race on Monday saw defending champions John Korir and Sharon Lokedi complete a Kenyan sweep, with Korir setting a new course record while Lokedi missed her previous record by one second.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n But another talking point from the race came from Aaron Beggs, of Northern Ireland, stopping to help exhausted runner Ajay Haridasse complete the race.<\/p>\n Videos filmed by bystanders from multiple angles show Boston native Haridasse, 21, collapse and attempt to stand repeatedly but buckle in exhaustion each time.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at my watch, I looked at him again, and my natural instinct was to just go and pick him up,\u201d Beggs told Al Jazeera in an online interview.<\/p>\n Videos show Beggs extend both arms to Haridasse, who had collapsed near a race barrier, to pull him to his feet, with a visibly exhausted Haridasse struggling to stand. Brazilian runner Robson De Oliveira also came from behind to support Haridasse before the two men slid under his shoulders to help him cross the finish line.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what I was telling myself in the previous two miles was why I went over and helped him, because it\u2019s a journey,\u201d Beggs said, adding his gratitude to De Oliveira for helping.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the three of us to continue our journey across the finish line like three strangers [from] three different countries \u2013 we\u2019ll have a story for the rest of our lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Beggs emphasised the importance of a feel-good moment like this going viral \u201cwhere every time we turn on the news it\u2019s just negativity\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all need just a nice story in our lives just to make us smile, bring a tear to our eyes with happiness \u2013 it\u2019s nice to be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Aaron Beggs says video of him and Brazilian Robson De Oliveira helping an exhausted competitor went viral due to a need for feel-good stories. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 The Northern Irish runner who helped carry a collapsed competitor over the finish line of the Boston marathon says the world needed a feel-good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80)
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