A video of French runner Alice Finot proposing to her boyfriend after the Olympics women’s 3,000 metres final has gone viral on social media, in the latest episode of athletes getting engaged at these Summer Games.
Love is in the air in Paris. The list of athletes getting engaged at these Summer Games hosted in the city of love, Paris, is growing by the minute.
French runner Alice Finot was the latest athlete to join the most romantic category of the 2024 Olympics — which is now counting seven wedding proposals.
Finot’s one was perhaps the most creative, as it broke several stereotypes in many ways.
After the women’s 3000 metres steeplechase final, she ran towards the stand searching for her partner, kneeled down and proposed by offering him an Olympic pin which she had held during the race.
The pin reads: “Love is in the air in Paris”. As she handed it to her boyfriend – Spanish triathlete Bruno Martínez Bargiela – the couple broke into a long and passionate hug that moved her now-fiancé to tears.
As if the night hadn’t been special enough, Finot had just broken the European record in the discipline, missing out on the bronze medal just by a margin of a few seconds.
Which other couples got engaged at the Paris Olympics?
It was Argentina that launched the trend of getting engaged at the Games, with another cross-sport couple.
On July 25, a day before the opening ceremony, men’s handball player Pablo Simonet proposed to field hockey team member Maria Campoy during a photo opportunity in the Olympic Village.
Wedding proposals at the Paris Olympics often coincided with medal wins.
Last Friday, French skiff sailing partners Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon were both proposed to after scooping a bronze.
One day later, it was China’s turn to spread the love. Badminton player Liu Yu Chen presented her girlfriend Huang Ya Qiong with an engagement ring only minutes after she’d won a gold medal in the badminton mixed doubles final.
The US Team was very active as well. Rowing athlete Justin Best got engaged to former Irish dancer Lainey Duncan on Monday, a day after shot putter Payton Otterdahl proposed to his girlfriend, Maddy Nilles, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Source: Euro News
