Photos: Chinese Boyfriend Proposes on Rio Podium

For most athletes, simply winning a silver medal for diving at the Olympics would be an overwhelming experience but China’s He Zi was asked to take the plunge again when her boyfriend proposed to her as she stepped down from the podium.

 

Zi, 25, who had just finished second in Sunday’s three-metre springboard event, covered her mouth in shock when her fellow Olympic diver Qin Kai materialised at the medal ceremony, bent down on one knee and offered up the box containing the engagement ring. Unfazed by the experience, Qin adroitly placed the ring on her finger and gave a thumbs up to the watching global TV audience.

 

“We’ve been dating for over six years,” Zi said. “I didn’t know that he would propose today, and I didn’t expect that I would marry myself out so early.

 

“He said a lot of things there at the podium. He made a lot of promises, but the thing that has touched me the most is that I think this is the guy I can trust for the rest of my life.”

 

She said she had been suspicious during the day: “I saw him during the afternoon and he seemed to be memorising something, so I asked him: ‘What are you doing?’ and he said he was singing.” Qin, 30, a bronze medallist in the men’s synchronised three-metre springboard, also gave his now-fiancee a red rose encased in glass.

 

It was the second engagement to take place at the Rio Games following that of the Brazilian rugby sevens player Isadora Cerullo who tied a gold ribbon around the finger of her girlfriend Marjorie Enya last week.