An Olympian penned a heartfelt apology letter to his wife after losing his wedding ring at the Opening Ceremony in Paris.
It's only been five days since the 2024 Olympics kicked off in Paris and it has already provided us with many viral moments.
One of those is from Italian athlete Gianmarco Tamberi, who revealed on social media that he lost a very special piece of jewelry during the event.
The high jumper, who was one of his country's flagbearers alongside Arianna Errigo, confessed in a touching post to his significant other that his wedding ring slipped off while on Italy’s boat traveling along the River Seine during the ceremony.
Read Tamberi's letter below:The 32-year-old has been married to his wife, Chiara Bontempi Temberi, 29, for nearly two years.
Translated from Italian to English, Tamberi began the lengthy caption: “I'm sorry my love, I'm so sorry."
Tamberi went on to speculate how he could have lost his precious jewelry. "Too much water, too many kilograms lost in the past few months, or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing," he said.
“Probably all three things, just the fact that I heard it, I saw it fly... I followed her with a glance until I saw her bouncing inside the boat," he continued. “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. A few moments that lasted an eternity."
Despite the misfortune, the Olympian chose to look on the bright side, stating that of all the places to lose his ring he “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," he said.
“If I had to invent an apology I would never have been this imaginative. 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," he added.
Tamberi concluded the letter with aspirations to bring home a gold medal to make up for the loss. “I love you, my love. May it be auspicious to come home with even bigger gold!!!” he lovingly said.
The post left many people swooning as they took to the comment section to share their reactions.
One user praised: "Legendary, turning a really unpleasant event into a declaration of love that doesn't get more romantic," while another said: "It was an accident, and yet you have a sensitivity that is very rare to find nowadays. Chiara is really lucky."
A third person wrote on X (formerly Twitter): "My god, what a poet. It's so beautiful I'll bet she doesn't even regret the ring becoming lost."
The athlete may have to wait until after the sporting event to replace his lost wedding ring as he’s scheduled to participate in the men’s high jump competition on August 7.