Medals of eternal friendship
Japanese pole vaulter Shuhei Nishida was an engineer for Japanese firm Hitachi before competing in the Olympic Games. At his first Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932, Nishida finished with the silver medal.
He would go on to participate at the 1932 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, and repeated his performance with similar success, again winning silver. This time, however, he had tied with compatriot and rival Sueo Oe; the two declined a rematch to see who would win silver and bronze, with Nishida arbitrarily given the silver medal and Oe the bronze.
The two had such a deep mutual respect for each other that Nishida and Oe, upon return to Japan, had the medals sawed in half and spliced together – giving them each a half silver, half-bronze medal.
They came to be known as the ‘medals of eternal friendship.’
