A Canadian figure skater's sweet gesture towards his fellow contestant during the award ceremony is winning hearts online. Canadian Keegan Messing held up the Japanese flag for fellow competitor Yuzuru Hanyu during the medal ceremony for the national anthem at the Autumn Classic International in Oakville, Ontario. His beautiful act is now going viral, earning him praise from all over the world, especially from Japan. When the national anthem of Japan started to play for gold medallist Hanyu, Messing noticed there was no flag display – so he took charge and decided to do the job himself. He unfurled the Japanese flag behind the podium and held it up while Hanyu got down from the dais and bowed to face it for the duration of the anthem. Messing's politeness was featured on the official Olympic channel Twitter and the poignant moment quickly caught the eye of the people online. Many lauded Messing and thanked him for his compassion and dubbed his actions as "true sportsman spirit". "That was just actually instinct, honestly. When they said that we’re gonna play the anthem for the winner, I looked out and I realized there was no flag ready," NBC Sports quoted the 27-year-old sportsman from Alberta. "A couple of the spectators had a flag but so I decided to hold up a flag because if I were in that place, I would’ve liked to have a flag presented at that time. That’s why I did it. I felt like that’s what I would’ve wanted so I went ahead and took initiative and I did it. I’m very happy I did. It felt good to do. I’m glad," he added. Messing brought home a bronze from the event with a total of 256.02 points and debuted his new short program featuring the song 'Perfect' by Ed Sheeran.
