But Anna said the symbolism was not lost on either twin. “We trained the last four years to participate in this marathon,” she said. “Neither the time nor the position was what made us happy but to know that we did the best that was possible that day.”

And yet the sisters were well short of their best marathon performances. Anna’s personal best in the marathon is 2 hours 26 minutes 44 seconds. Lisa’s is 2:28.39. In Rio, Anna finished in 2:45.32, and Lisa in 2:45.33 despite coming early to the Olympic city to acclimatize.

Clearly, the large time gap between their previous performances and their Olympic performances made Kurschilgen and others only more convinced that they were not seeing the twins’ best effort.

There is a school of thought at the Olympics and elsewhere that it can be better for an athlete’s profile and even their bottom line to lose memorably — however unintentionally — than to win routinely. D’Agostino and Hamblin would not have become global talking points on Tuesday if they had simply collided and soldiered on without interacting.

Nor would the British runner Derek Redmond have become part of an “Olympic moment” if he had simply won his 400 semifinal at the 1992 Olympics instead of tearing his hamstring and insisting on continuing the race. His father came onto the track to assist him as he hobbled to the finish with the Barcelona crowd cheering him on. Even though Redmond was disqualified for receiving outside aid, the image and the memory were and remain powerful.

It is the unexpected and uncalculated gesture that so often moves the masses most, no matter what the culture.

“This is Olympism,” said Mary Wittenberg, former director of the New York City Marathon who has attended many Olympics. “Yes, athletes go as hard as they can to win the shiniest medals they can most of the time. We love that, and we want to see those medal dreams come true. That said, there are moments when it’s not all about that and most often, as in the case of the Hahners, it’s also because that’s not in the cards at a given event. So an athlete makes a conscious decision to make the most of the moment in a different way.”