She blew out her knee — and blew the world away with her spirit.
Abbey D’Agostino, the American distance runner who became the face of Olympic sportsmanship when she helped an opponent after a result-ruining collision in the women’s 5,000 meters preliminaries Tuesday in Rio, finished the race on a completely torn ACL.
D’Agostino tripped over New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin, who had stumbled to the track in the middle of a pack of runners. She exhorted Hamblin to get up and finish the race — but soon realized she was the worse for wear, grimacing in complete agony when she tried to put weight on her right leg.
Still, D’Agostino gamely finished the 3.1-mile circuit, embracing Hamblin at the finish line before exiting the stadium in a wheelchair.
USA Track & Field announced Wednesday that D’Agostino had indeed suffered season-ending knee injuries. An MRI exam revealed a complete tear of her right ACL, a meniscus tear and a strained MCL.
“She ran four and a half laps barely being able to run. I’m so impressed and inspired that she did that,” Hamblin told reporters Tuesday. “I’ve never met her before. Like, I’ve never met this girl before. And isn’t that just so amazing? That’s an amazing moment. Regardless of the race and the result on the board, that’s a moment that you’re never, ever going to forget. The rest of your life, it’s going to be that girl shaking my shoulder like, ‘Come on, get up.'”
D’Agostino will be unable to compete in Friday’s final, which she had reached on appeal despite her lowly time. But the 24-year-old insists that’s not what’s most important to her about her first Olympics experience.
“In a split second, there was a woman on the ground in front of me, I tripped on her, someone behind me tripped on me, and I was on the ground. Although my actions were instinctual at that moment, the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way,” D’Agostino said in a statement released by USATF. “This whole time here he’s made clear to me that my experience in Rio was going to be about more than my race performance — and as soon as Nikki got up I knew that was it.”
