GLYNDON, Minn. – Every once in a while in athletics, who wins and who loses just doesn’t matter.

More than 20 teams and hundreds of runners competed on Saturday in the Eastern Dakota Conference Cross Country Championship.

The real winner? A show of compassion; a young woman from Devils Lake, N.D., who finished 8½ minutes behind the first-place finisher.

This picture says it all. Devils Lake senior Melanie Bailey carrying distraught and injured Fargo South runner Danielle LeNoue at the cross country meet held at the Ponderosa Golf Course near Glyndon.

“I was past the two-mile mark; close to the finish line,” LeNoue said.

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“It happened instantly and felt like a pop in my knee. … Down I went. My left leg.”

LeNoue hurt her knee. Her left leg buckled during the run … an injury to her patella tendon.

“Just sobbing and so I started walking and I could not go any farther and she said, ‘Here, hop on my back,’ half my size.”

The good Samaritan was Devils Lake High School runner Melanie Bailey.

“All I could think about was she was in a lot of pain. And I wanted to help her,” Bailey said.

Bailey is a competitor who says she was doing the right thing.

“Honestly, I loved the way I ended it. It was a great way to end my cross country season,” LeNoue said.

Now this is what winning is all about: two runners finishing the race together, one carrying the other … because that’s what you do.

“So nice, she didn’t have to do that,” LeNoue said of Bailey. “How many people ran past me? And she stopped.”

The two girls have been Facebooking each other. Strangers … now friends. It’s good to give someone the shirt off your back; even better to carry them on it when they’re down.

“Pretty cool, touching moment for me,” LeNoue said.

And the Devils Lake Senior plans a career in physical therapy.