Runners help each other after fall, lifting Olympic spirit

New Zealand middle distance runner Nikki Hamblin has qualified for the 5000 metre final after a dramatic incident being hailed as showing the true Olympic spirit.

No one wants to fall at the Olympics. It ended their hopes for an Olympic medal in that contest.

D’Agostino, of Topsfield, Mass., collided with Hamblin about 3,200 meters into the race, possibly because Hamblin had slowed her pace to avoid contact with another runner who was being lapped.

It was D’Agostino, who had stopped, and was lifting her rival to her feet.

Instead of chasing down the pack with an eye on recovering, Hamblin helped D’Agostino off the ground and encouraged her to finish the race.

“Get up, get up!” “We have to finish this”. D’Agostino said, according to ESPN.

Perhaps the most moving parcel of time that these Games will see happened at Olympic Stadium on Tuesday morning, in the heats of the women’s 5,000 meters. “We have to finish this!”

Despite their finish times, both will advance to the final due to having been tripped.

The internet was awash with praise for the pair, saying they embodied the Olympic spirit. I am so impressed and inspired by that. Hamblin finished the race in 16:43, D’Agostino in 17:10.

New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D’Agostino of the USA both advanced to the women’s 5,000 metres final, but in dramatic and emotional circumstances, after they were involved in a fall late in the second heat on Tuesday (Rio time) when both athletes crashed to the track.

D’Agostino was taken off the track in a wheelchair, with both progressing to the final on appeal.

“I am so grateful to Abbey for doing that for me”, Hamblin said. “Everybody knows about the Olympics, and it means so much to me to be an athletic ambassador to the world and a role model”. “It’s such a huge privilege to have a spot on the Olympic team”.