From post-run proposals to co-competitor couples planning a walk down the aisle, the Milan Cortina Olympics have been a romantic backdrop for engagements
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/olympic-engagements-021826-36888b07dea14c3bb03f980cc78bc38e.jpg "Hilary Knight and Brittany Bowe; Breezy Johnson and Connor Watkins; Jean-Luc Baker and Olivia Smart")
Hilary Knight/Instagram; Breezy Johnson/Instagram; Joosep Martinson/Getty
Whether or not they're heading home with an Olympic medal, these world-class athletes will definitely be able to flaunt some new hardware upon their return — because they got engaged at the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics!
From Breezy Johnson's boyfriend popping the run-post crash to former figure skating rivals finding love off the rink, there's been plenty of love in the air in Italy this time around. Read on to see who's getting married once they return to reality post-Olympic games.
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Breezy Johnson
Stifel U.S. Ski Team/Instagram
Alpine skier Breezy Johnson had already secured a gold medal five days earlier, but crashed in the Feb. 12 Super-G and wasn't able to finish the race. However, when she made it to the finish line, her boyfriend Connor Watkins was waiting with quite the consolation prize: An engagement ring inside a box inscribed with the Taylor Swift lyric, "Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy."
The Olympian was thrilled by the gesture, telling NBC that "I may have told him that I just always kind of had the dream of getting engaged at the Olympics." She doubled down on that sentiment when internet commenters accused him of stealing her shine during her big moment, writing on Threads, "When your girlfriend asks to get engaged at the Olympics to combine the two loves of her life... listen!"
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Olivia Smart
Joosep Martinson/Getty
From a heated rivalry to lasting love! Figure skater Olivia Smart (who competes for Spain and came in ninth in ice dance this year) got engaged to her former rival Jean-Luc Baker (who last skated with Team USA during the 2022 Beijing Olympics) on the streets of Milan on Valentine's Day.
In a video shared by the Olympics YouTube channel, Baker recalled being friends with Smart for more than a decade before realizing she was the one for him. He filmed a video of her eventual engagement ring against footage his bride-to-be on the ice, before getting on one knee to pop the question.
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Kateryna Kotsar
AP Photo/Abbie Parr
Love was in the (big) air when Ukrainian freestyle skiier Kateryna Kotsar received a Valentine's Day proposal from boyfriend Bohdan Fashtryha shortly after she qualified for the big air final in Livigno.
“He said in Ukrainian if I want to marry him, nothing else. He didn’t have enough time, and he was nervous. It was so cute," she told reporters. "I'm still excited and can't understand what happened tonight, because it's two really huge things for me!"
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Brittany Bowe and Hilary Knight
Hilary Knight/Instagram (2)
Team USA athletes Brittany Bowe (who came in fourth in the 1000m speedskating race) and Hilary Knight (the captain of Team USA hockey, who will compete against Canada for gold Feb. 19) fell in love at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where the lack of spectators due to the Covid-19 pandemic meant they had more time to get to know each other. So it's only fitting that they bring their love story full circle with a proposal at the 2026 winter Olympics.
"Olympics brought us together. This one made us forever," Knight captioned her Instagram video of her proposal to Bowe, who tearfully accepted.
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