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Louise Thomas
Editor
An Olympic athlete’s trip down the River Seine for the Paris 2024 opening ceremony resulted in a ring overboard.
During the extravagant July 26 festival in the City of Light, which saw grand performances from Lady Gaga and Celine Dion, teams from around the world were pulled in a boat procession along the water. Unfortunately, Team Italia’s Gianmarco Tamberi’s aquatic moment was quickly ruined when his wedding ring slid into the river.
But the three-time Olympian high jumper has now managed to turn the devastating accident into a heartwarming act of love, penning a delicate apology to his wife Chiara Bontempi Tamberi that’s touched thousands of hearts online.
The day after the incident, Gianmarco, 32, posted a carousel of images on Instagram, combining pictures from his wedding day and the opening ceremony.
Underneath the sweet slide deck, the Italian flag bearer wrote to his forever partner.
According to the NBC Olympics website, Gianmarco’s message translates as: “Too much water, too many kilos lost in the past few months, or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing.”
“Probably all three things, the fact remains that I felt (the ring) slip away, I saw it fly … I followed (it) with a glance until I saw (it) bouncing inside the boat,” he continued. “It will stay forever in the riverbed of the city of love, flown away while I tried to carry the Italian tricolor as high as possible during the opening ceremony of the most important sport evening in the world.”
Gianmarco finished: “If I had to invent an apology, I would never have been this imaginative. I think there might be a huge poetic side to yesterday’s misdeed, and if you want, we’ll throw yours into that river, too, so they’ll be together forever, and we’ll have one more excuse to, like you’ve always asked, renew our vows and get married anew.”
Looking ahead to his time in the games, Gianmarco hoped the lost ring would be a metaphor for new gold in his future. And he certainly may receive some at this year’s Paris 2024 games after he brought home a gold medal from Tokyo in 2021.
In the comments of his social media post, fans fawned over the romantic sentiment, commenting with heart emojis.
“A poet,” one adoring follower wrote, while another said: “Teach me to face every problem in life with style.” An enamored third added: “If it’s gold, you know how to recover it.”
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