USA shot putter Payton Otterdahl just got down on one knee in Paris!
On Sunday, August 4, Otterdahl, 28, shared sweet photos on Instagram of him proposing to his girlfriend Maddy Nilles while touring the city amid the 2024 Olympics.
“Meanwhile in the City of Love… I love you forever, Maddy Nilles! @maddynilles27 ❤️,” the athlete captioned the post.
One photo shows Otterdahl presenting Nilles with a ring box in front of the Eiffel Tower, as she smiles and holds his hand.
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The couple kissed in another picture, with Nilles holding her partner’s face. A third shot showed him beaming as he gave her a ring, and a fourth and final image showed Otterdahl dipping his wife-to-be while holding her leg and kissing her in front of the historic landmark.
The couple wore casual clothes in the pictures, with Otterdahl wearing a purple T-shirt, black shorts and an upside-down baseball cap, while Nilles wore a white tank top and patterned skirt.
Sharing the post on her Instagram stories, Nilles wrote: “Je vous aime (I LOVE YOU).”
The proposal came after Otterdahl was fourth in the shot put with 22.03 meters on Saturday, while Team USA’s Ryan Crouser won a historic third consecutive Olympic gold medal with a distance of 22.90 meters and Joe Kovacs won silver with 22.15 meters.
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Payton Otterdahl competes in the men’s shot put final at the 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 3, 2024.
BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty
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He came close to an “American 1-2-3 tackle,” Team USA wrote on its website, but Otterdahl was eventually taken over by Jamaica’s Rajindra Campbell, who matched Kovacs’ score.
According to the USA Track & Field site, Kovacs earned the silver based on a better secondary score, while Campbell’s bronze marked Jamaica’s first shot put medal.
“It’s just the reality of fourth place — it’s not a good feeling,” Otterdahl, of Team USA, said, adding: “I’m not happy with the performance, but it is what it is.”
“I wish we could have done it – we were close but not close enough,” he added.
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Huang Ya Qiong got engaged at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Getty
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Otterdahl isn’t the only athlete to pop the question at the Paris Olympics, with Chinese badminton player Huang Ya Qiong (30) surprised with a ring by her boyfriend and fellow Olympian Liu Yuchen (29).
The proposal came after Huang and her doubles partner Zheng Siwei, 27, won the gold medal in the badminton mixed doubles final against the South Korean team of Kim Won-ho and Jeong Na-eun on Thursday, August 2.
According to the Olympics website, Huang said she “can’t describe the feeling I have because I’m happy, happy, happy” after the engagement.
To find out more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com and check out the live coverage before, during and after the games. And sign up for Going for Gold, our Olympic newsletter, to receive the biggest stories from the Games straight to your inbox. Watch the Paris Olympics and Paralympics starting July 26 on NBC and Peacock.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education