They were among three runners reinstated by the International Association of Athletics Federations has reinstated three runners after falls during a chaotic race won by the woman who broke the 10,000m record on day one, Almaz Ayana.

New Zealand’s Hamblin, 29^th in 16.43.61, and US runner D’Agostino, 30^th in 17:10.02 have thus advanced to Friday’s final along with Austria's Jennifer Wenth, 28th in 16:07.02..

What took place between Hamblin and D’Agostino will take its place in Olympic folklore.

Hamblin tripped and fell on the back straight ten minutes into the race, bringing down D’Agostino. 

The American was up first, and helped Hamblin to her feet before both continued.

But soon D’Agostino limped to a halt before subsiding to the track and holding her right knee with a grimace of pain. 

Hamblin, who had been running next to her, stopped to offer words of comfort before resuming the race, clearly in tears.

D’Agostino eventually resumed and hugged Hamblin at the finish line before leaving the stadium in a wheelchair.

Hamblin’s view of the incident was this: “I went down, and I was like, 'What's happening? Why am I on the ground?'

“Then suddenly this hand on my shoulder, like 'Get up, get up, we have to finish this' and I was like, 'Yup, yup, you're right. This is the Olympic Games. We have to finish this.'

"I'm so grateful for Abbey for doing that for me. That girl is the Olympic spirit right there.

"I've never met her before, like I've never met this girl before, and isn't that just so amazing? Such an amazing woman.

"Regardless of the race and the result on the board, that's a moment that you're never ever going to forget for the rest of your life, that girl shaking my shoulder, like 'Come on, get up'.

If I can even give her like 1% back of what she gave me when she helped me get up off the track that would be amazing.

"I can't even put into words how amazing it is that she actually finished. She's hurt."

"I went down. She went down. She pulled me up. She could hardly stand up. She helped me first. I tried to help her. She was pretty bad. I didn't even realise she was still running.

"When I turned around at the finish line and she's still running I was like, 'Wow'.

"When you're at this level you know how hard it is to get here. There's just a mutual understanding of how much everyone puts into it.

"I'm never going to forget that moment. When someone asks me what happened in Rio in 20 years' time, that's my story."

The incident had echoes of the fabled moment during the Australian National Championships just prior to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics when world mile record holder John Landy - who would win 1500m bronze at those Games - doubled back to check on 19-year-old Ron Clarke after another runner had clipped his heels and tripped him up.

Clarke, who would go on to break multiple world records, had been early leader of the race.

Landy, remarkably, made up the ground over the final two laps to win.

The National Centre for History and Education in Australia's view is: "It was a spontaneous gesture of sportsmanship and it has never been forgotten."

Wenth, who was also hindered in the race, will join the pair in the final.

It is the second time in 24 hours that the IAAF has shown its caring side. 

Yesterday, after the first two heats of the 110m hurdles had taken place in a downpour which left the track a mass of treacherous puddles gleaming in the light, they allowed the four slowest finishers in each to reform for a re-run at the end of the night in order to have a fairer go at filling one of the four places on offer in the semi-finals for “fastest losers.”