D’Agostino out with torn ACL, but her Olympic moment will endure
Abbey D’Agostino, whose selfless actions in a 5,000-meter heat enchanted a global audience, won’t run again in the Rio Olympics.
She will not compete in the final of her event or receive what would surely have been a rousing reception from the Olympic Stadium crowd, and she will not complete her dream of going shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the world.
D’Agostino, who gained worldwide approval for her remarkable gesture in helping fallen rival Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand to her feet after both fell Tuesday, revealed Wednesday that an MRI had shown a three-pronged injury to her right knee: a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, a meniscus tear and a strained medial collateral ligament.
She will have to make do with a place in Olympic folklore instead. And all because she disobeyed her coach’s instructions.
“She did pretty much the opposite of what I told her,” D’Agostino’s coach, Mark Coogan, told USA TODAY Sports. “And I am so glad she did.”
Coogan has known D’Agostino for six years, ever since she joined Dartmouth as a freshman and he was the women’s cross country coach there. From the beginning he marveled at her work ethic but also noticed her kindness. Everyone notices D’Agostino’s kindness. Talk to people she knows, and the word leaves their mouths within the first sentence.
Under Coogan’s mentorship, she became the most decorated athlete in Ivy League history, winning seven NCAA titles. Over the years with Coogan, she would discuss race strategy, tactics and, yes, what to do if the worst-case scenario of a fall happened midrace.
“I always told her, ‘If you go down, here is what I want you to do,’ ” Coogan said. “I told her to get up, dust herself off, have a quick look around and then get right back to running. Obviously she did pretty much the opposite of that, and the world got to see the kind of person she is. She did the right thing.”
She always does. At her training group — she is a pro athlete with New Balance — the rest of the squad often reacts to mental dilemmas by asking aloud, “What would Abbey do?”
At Dartmouth, members of the athletics department gathered around laptops and tablets to watch the 5,000 heats and held their collective breath when she tumbled to the track.
“First it was, ‘Oh, no,’ followed I think by several expletives,” Dartmouth’s director of track and cross country Barry Harwick said. “Then it was concern for Abbey and then … wow, immense pride.”
Pride, yes. Surprise, no. For D’Agostino, 24, was always a little different to other athletes. She was the kind of runner who would win a race and then go to check on teammates who were still running or had finished farther back. She was there with words of advice and encouragement.
It appears to have always been that way. Gingy Quinn was D’Agostino’s sixth-grade teacher at Proctor Elementary in Topsfield, Mass.
“She was the same kind, caring, upbeat young lady then, always the first to help a peer,” Quinn wrote in an email. “What I best remember about Abbey was her positive attitude, willingness to work hard to achieve her best and her universal kindness to everyone.”
There’s that word again, kindness. The Olympics are an aweinspiring event, but they are not particularly kind.
Out of thousands of athletes, a tiny fraction return home with the ultimate dream of a medal accomplished. Dreams spawned by years of toil can be shattered in an instant.
Behind the feel-good nature of this story, that is what happened to D’Agostino. She just chose to make it something different.
“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,” she said in a statement. “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.”
D’Agostino’s gesture put a lump in the throat of millions watching and NBC commentator Tim Hutchings, a former Olympic athlete for Britain.
“You suddenly get this sense that you are watching something incredible unfolding and you wonder how to put it into words,” Hutchings said. “Her dream was crushed, but then magic happened. She will be a national hero now, an Olympic hero, and rightly so. She showed how a special act can reach people far more than all the medals in the world.”
So what’s next for D’Agostino? If she wants it, a career as a motivational speaker surely beckons. Once she is done running, though, a Ph.D. in psychology is likely on the agenda, Coogan said. “So she can help people.” Of course.