“Flaca, do you want to marry me, please?” Argentine fencer Belén Pérez was surprised with this message written by her coach, Lucas Saucedo, when the athlete appeared before the media on Monday to share her impressions after being eliminated in the first round of the Tokyo Olympic Games competition. He dropped to the knee and turned grief into an unforgettable occasion in which his love prevailed over sporting misery. “Tell me yes, many people are looking at us,” said the coach before merging into a tender kiss with his student.
Proof that between the spirit of sacrifice and hard training there is also time for love are the many couples who have emerged from the sporting event over the years. The most famous couple that the Olympic Games have ever given. It is formed by Mirka Vavrinec and Roger Federer. In Sydney 2000, the then 22-year-old tennis player was part of the Swiss tennis team and there she met a rookie Federer, 18. “We spent two weeks together, we met, and the day before we left we kissed for the first time. No one knew where it was going to take us, but here we are twenty years later, married with four children, ”he declared.
21-year-old Federer and Vavrinec kiss Sydney goodbye
Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec met in Sydney 2000 and are still together two decades later
At the Maracaná stadium, during the opening ceremony of Rio 2016, the image of love between Spanish athletes was starred in the kiss of Ignacio Martín, player of the Spanish rugby team, to his wife, long jumper Juliet Itoya, although little else the relationship of these two discreet athletes is known.
Those of Rio will be a Games remembered for being one of the most romantic among Spanish couples, since Martín and Itoya’s was not the only marriage that participated in them. The judoka couple Sugoi Uriarte and Laura Gómez had been married in Valencia four years before meeting in Rio, but both were eliminated in the round of 16 of their respective categories. The ex-partner formed by the swimmer Mireia Belmonte -who got that honorable bronze in the 400-meter styles in Rio and is still conspicuous in Tokyo- and the canoeist Javier Hernanz shared something more than the tracksuit of the Olympic team in Rio, but they distanced themselves in 2019 .
Medalists.The Kenny, both cyclists, add 10 gold
This year there are up to 9 international Olympic couples that match in the Games. Among them is the marriage of cyclists formed by Laura and Jason Kenny, who between them have achieved a total of 10 gold medals. Megan Jones and Celia Quansah, teammates on Britain’s current Olympic women’s rugby team, have been in a relationship since the start of the pandemic. And also, giving visibility to the LGTBI + group in Tokyo, the Dutch couple Edward Gal and Hans Peter Minderhoud compete in dressage, representing the Netherlands.
That love arises and is consolidated in the Olympic Games. it is a reality since the origins of the appointment. This year, the Olympic village of Chuo Ward will host more than 10,000 athletes and staff during the Games, but, due to the atypical nature of this call, where it is intended that social distance prevail among the participants due to the coronavirus, it is expected to be the encounter with fewer contacts between athletes. It will be the first time since Seoul’88 that condoms are not distributed to athletes, instead they will be distributed when athletes leave Tokyo to continue raising awareness about the fight against HIV.
Athletic bodies with months of accumulated tension ready to celebrate victories or drown sorrows for losses, if they listen to the organization, they will have to settle this year with flirting on Tinder.
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