Olympic Profiles: Abbey Cooper (D'Agostino), Track

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You might remember Abbey Cooper from the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro back in 2016.

That's when Cooper (then known as Abbey D'Agostino) tore her ACL and meniscus during the women's 5000-meter preliminary, but somehow still persevered to finish the race. Four years later, the Topsfield, Mass. native is ready to make her anticipated comeback.

Since that day in 2016, Cooper has had to overcome numerous challenges as she aimed to return to full strength.

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"I was able to actually run after five months which again is pretty standard for an ACL repair," Cooper said. "The challenge has come in the wake of that initial running and kind of getting back to form.

"This is a very atypical injury for a distance runner, so I've been kind of a case study in that sense."

As she worked to return to form as a runner, Cooper also went through plenty of changes in her personal life.

Cooper married her husband, Jacob, in 2018. Jacob works for Appalachian State as the staff sports psychologist, and when he got the job, he and Abbey moved to Asheville, NC. There, Abbey started working with her new coach, Chris Layne.

"Of course just with the all the transition in getting married and moving and having to renew that support system, that's been another layer of challenge as well," said Cooper.

You can learn more about Abbey and her road back to the Olympics in the video above.

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