Olympian shocked to see familiar face in the stands
An Australian Olympian has shared a sweet video of herself showing the moment she spotted a familiar face in the crowd.
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An Australian Olympian has shared a sweet video of herself showing the moment she spotted a familiar face in the crowd.
Tilly Kearns, who represents Australia in water polo, is dating NFL rookie Justin Dedich after the pair met at an American university,
However, because Dedich was about to play his first NFL game, she knew he wouldn’t be able to watch her compete at the Olympics and she wouldn’t be able to see his first game.
Kearns understood this — it was the life dating long distance.
However, she recently took to TikTok to show herself walking along the pool ahead of her gold medal match.
A hand was furiously waving at her from the crowd and when they finally caught her attention as she made her way over to stand by her team.
Kearns couldn’t believe it when she saw Dedich in the stands, clasping her hand over her mouth. When she got to her teammates, she told them, and they all turned back to Dedich.
He burst into tears following the moment.
She posted a video the following day explaining it “was not even a thought in her head” that he would come because he was set to play his first game the following day.
“He was just doing his thing, I was doing my thing. We knew we couldn’t be there in person to support each other,” she said.
“It turns out when we won our semi final to get into the gold medal game, he went up to his head coach — pretty ballsy of him — and said, ‘Tell me if I’m out of line but can I go?’.”
“And the coach was like, ‘Yeah man, what are you still doing here? Go’.”
Dedich then got on a plane that night, in Paris for less than 24 hours just to make sure he could watch and support Kearns.
She said she didn’t even get to see him after her match because he ran to the airport to catch the flight back to make it to his own sporting moment.
Kearns said her boyfriend did himself proud in his first professional NFL game.
“Basically, if they wanted to they would,” she said, referring to the catch phrase people use to get over mediocre romantic relationships.
The story quickly captured many hearts, with one calling it their “favourite story” from the Olympic Games.
“He’s the definition of a gold-standard green flag boyfriend,” one social media user commented.
Another said: “So glad he did it but so amazing of his coach to support like that, too.”
“These Olympic couples have been keeping me in tears every single day,” one added.
Another said: “He just raised my standards just hearing about this.”
Originally published as Olympian shocked to see familiar face in the stands
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