A wedding ring is supposed to be a symbol of lifelong commitment that you never take off—but what about if it falls off? Into a 30-foot-deep moving river no less?
Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi was proudly serving as Italy’s flag bearer during the Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremonies on the Seine when a terrible mishap occurred. As Tamberi tells it on Instagram (auto-translated from Italian), “too much water, too many kg lost in the past few months or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing,” led to his ring flying off his finger while he was waving Italy’s flag.
He had a “glimmer of hope” when he saw it bounce off the inside of the boat, but alas, “the bounce was in the wrong direction and floating more than a thousand times in the air I saw her dive into the water like that was the only place she wanted to be.”
“A few moments that lasted an eternity,” he wrote. One can only imagine the mix of emotions he must have experienced in those moments.
But whatever despair he felt seems to have turned to positive acceptance as he said he “couldn’t imagine a better place” for his wedding ring to be lost.
“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 sporting event in the world,” he wrote. Aww, seriously.
But then it got even better as he made a suggestion to his wife, Chiara Bontempi Tamberi.
“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.”
Come on. Throwing her ring in the river too so that they would be together forever and they could get married all over again? That’s like a scene out of a romcom you want to hate but just can’t.
People loved how he handled the lost ring dilemma in such a romantic way:
“This guy is literally straight out of a romance novel.”
“This is a man who knows how to say… honey, I lost my ring.without ending up in the dog house.”
“That Italian charm is undefeated.”
“Bro won the Olympic gold medal for romance damn.”
“Dude is smoother than Reese’s peanut butter. Well done bruh.”
Tamberi wrapped up his public apology with “I love you my love ❤️ May it be auspicious to come home with even bigger gold!!!”
The high jumper has some experience with both Olympic gold and viral fame, as he and his closest competitor tied for gold in the Tokyo Olympics. Rather than do a jump off to determine a single winner, the two decided to share the gold medalin a beautiful display of sportsmanship. (Tamberi is also known for shaving half his beard before competitions, hence the half-bearded “Lord of the Rings” reference in the final Instagram slide.)
Here’s to amor