Picture Credit: X
The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics was definitely one of its kind in several different matters. While it was the first to be held outside the stadium in the history of Summer Olympics, the ceremony was even marred with controversies for several different reasons.
Amid many such was a loss for Italy’s flagbearer, Gianmarco Tamberi. The Italian long jumper, who was honoured to be the flagbearer for their contingent, lost his wedding ring in river Seine during the opening ceremony. The long jumper later took to social media to confront his wife of the prized loss in an open letter.
“I’m sorry my love, I’m really sorry,” Tamberi started his open letter, which he wrote in an Instagram post. “Too much water, too many kg lost in the past few months or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing. Probably all three things, just the fact that I heard it parade, I saw it fly…. I followed her with glance until I saw her bouncing inside the boat. A Glimmer of Hope… But unfortunately 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,” he further added, bringing a poetic touch.
“A few moments that lasted an eternity. But if it was meant to happen, if I'm really going to lose this faith, I couldn't imagine a better place. 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. If I had to invent an apology I would never have been this imaginative," he continued.
"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 to new,” he continued, vouching his wife that he will look to renew the vows and “get married to new”.
Tamberi ended his elaborate post hoping to win a gold and get home with an even bigger one, writing, “May it be auspicious to come home with even bigger gold!!!”
The Italian made into the headlines last month too for pretending to hide springs in his shoes after he claimed a gold at the European Championships. It is to be noted that Tamberi is a strong favourite to win a gold in men’s high jump, which begins on August 7. He is coming at the Paris Olympics 2024 as the defending champion after he shared a gold with his close friend Mutaz Barshim at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
