A shoulder to lean on: Steeplechaser stops, lends a helping hand to a struggling competitor

TOKYO (AP) — Steeplechaser Tim Van de Velde looked behind him and saw a fellow competitor gingerly crawling over the last barrier on a 3,000-meter journey that went terribly wrong for both.

The Belgian's hopes for a top finish already long crushed, he turned around, put an arm around stumbling Carlos San Martin and helped him limp in to the finish.

That show of sportsmanship Saturday between the 10th- and 11th-place finishers in an otherwise routine qualifying race might very well have been the highlight of a busy opening night at track and field world championships, even on a day when five gold medals were handed out.

“I saw him stumbling and thought, ‘Why not?'” Van de Velde said. “We both had bad luck, I guess. Maybe we can share some bad luck together."

Van de Velde was racing in front as the runners approached the water pit to start the third of a 7 1/2-lap race. Steeplechase is a bruising challenge that asks them to vault five 3-foot-high barriers placed around the track, one of which fronts a 2-foot-deep water obstacle.

The Belgian clipped the barrier and fell in. By the time he got up, his hopes of winning, or placing in the top five to move onto the next round, were gone. He raced the rest of the way just to say he finished.

Van de Velde is no stranger to these sort of slipups. The 25-year-old, a gold medalist at the 2016 European Youth Championships, broke his collarbone after a fall at European Championships last year. At worlds in Eugene, Oregon, in 2022, he fell into the water and injured his ankle.

“I know what it's like to feel helpless on the track,” he said.

As does San Martin. The Colombian was helped off the track in a wheelchair and didn't come through the interview area.

Van de Velde said it will take time to get over this latest disappointment. Chances are he'll be remembered for something other than where he finished.

“We’re both competitors. We both work very hard,” Van de Velde said. "Of course, the main goal was the final and we both had bad luck, so that’s why I did it.”

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Colombia's Carlos San Martin and Belgium's Tim Van De Velde help each other to the nine during a men's 3,000 meters steeplechase heat at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea have seized another sanctioned oil tanker the Trump administration says has ties to Venezuela, coming as part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote Thursday on social media, “Motor Tanker Veronica had previously passed through Venezuelan waters, and was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”

A social media post from U.S. Southern Command on the capture said that Marines and sailors launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to make the capture while Noem’s post noted that, like in previous raids, a U.S. Coast Guard tactical team conducted the boarding and seizure.

Noem posted a brief video that appeared to show part of the ship’s capture. The black-and-white footage showed helicopters hovering over the deck of a merchant vessel while armed troops dropped down on the deck by rope.

The Veronica is the sixth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of the effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products, and the fourth since the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid almost two weeks ago.

Noem, in her social media post, said that the raid was carried out with “close coordination with our colleagues” in the military as well as the State and Justice departments.

“Our heroic Coast Guard men and women once again ensured a flawlessly executed operation, in accordance with international law,” Noem added.

This story has been corrected to show the Veronica is the fourth, not the third, tanker seized by U.S. forces since Maduro's capture.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a press conference, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at a news conference at Harry Reid International Airport, Nov. 22, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill, File)