Track star, mom talk about viral video displaying perseverance after big hurdle fall
OLD TAPPAN, New Jersey (WABC) -- A 15-year-old girl fell flat during a Bergen County High School track meet.
She fell flat during the girls' 100-meter hurdles, but she got up and kept going.
The clip of her, and her mom cheering her on, has been posted, shared, and reposted on sites worldwide by celebrities and athletes with tens of millions of views and it keeps going with the hashtag #GoAbbyGo.
What you may not know about that video is that student-athlete is from Old Tappan.
"Oh no, oh no Abby," her mom was heard saying.
"I told her I was sad and I was embarrassed about it, but my mom is always the first person to bring me up when I'm down and I knew she would bring me the positives about it and she did," Abby Dennis said.
"Your mom is crying, she knows you're hurt, did you ever think upwards of 50 million views," Nina Pineda asked.
"Oh no, I could never imagine that," she said. "I don't think anyone did."
"It was hard to see her hurt, see her down, but it was great to see her come back," said Chryssan Dennis, Abby's mother.
"What do you think other moms feel when they hear your voice, start thinking, I think they can feel it you are sad and concerned and there's nothing you can do and you kind of will her up," Pineda said. "And you have been accepted to any Ivy League school."
"During the recruiting process I narrowed it down to Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, and Notre Dame," Abby said.
"You're going on to Harvard. You're one of the few female athletes, less than 2% make the transition," Pineda said.
"More women in sports, more women in track and field, and I hope with my video, I'm hoping that my video will inspire many people to do that," Abby said.
"Okay, we are going to go down to the track, relive the moment and up to where mom was in the bleachers, and tell you all about this moment of inspiration really," Pineda said.
"I hooked it and I fell down flat like a Superman," Abby said. "I still have the scars on my knees from when I fell."
"Did you consider not getting up?" Pineda asked.
"That thought never crossed my mind. I just said, get up, finish, for all the hard work, and finish for your team," Abby said.
"She said, 'Oh no, Abby oh no,' and the first time I heard it, I felt like I wanted to cry, I felt her pain with me!" she said. "She's always in the top left corner if I'm ever nervous, need a snack, I know right where to go."
"So this is your spot, this where she knows to look, you and your husband are here, and you've got your phone," Pineda said.
"I film it and her dad is in a different stop filming as well," her mom said. "I didn't know if she could race for the finals. I knew right away when she fell it was very bad, I was saying, 'Oh no, oh no,' I was crying, I felt all the emotions you could feel in 10 seconds."
Chryssan Dennis continued, "I knew she could she would do her best to get up...and do her best. I stopped the video because she called me crying and when the video took off and she said, 'I can use this platform of positivity.' It just became so special to her to help people she loves, the meaning."
Martina Navratilova, Viola Davis, and Olympian Sydney McLaughlin all reposted it.
"She is my idol, she's an Olympian, and a woman of color, it brought me to tears because I look up to her so much," Abby said.
"It's beautiful, it's gone in so many directions, religious motivation, we did get a call they want to use it for a national commercial," Chryssan said.
"We are hoping that Caitlin Clark and Shakira Richardson can bring the light that's needed these girls work just as hard as the boys!" she said. "I'm hoping the video that i can do something to change that."
"But I want to be a lawyer too so I need to balance my career in law and my career in track," Abby said.
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