Speedskater Brittany Bowe may not have medaled but she is leaving the Winter Olympics with at least one piece of hardware after longtime girlfriend Hilary Knight proposed at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Knight, who is about to play in the women’s hockey gold medal game, got down on one knee to pop the question to Bowe, according to an Instagram video they posted on Wednesday. They were both decked out in their Team USA gear to boot.
“Olympics brought us together,” Knight wrote. “This one made us forever.”
Bowe is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, though neither of those came from the Milan Cortina Games. Knight is a four-time medalist herself and is guaranteed a fifth in tomorrow’s grudge match against Canada.
If Team USA wins, Knight will have her second gold medal. If they lose, she’ll go home with her fourth silver medal.
The couple has been together since they fell in love at the 2022 Beijing Games, where there were still protocols that restricted audiences and family from attending the Olympics. But Knight said it was a perfect way to get to know Bowe as they spent many days walking around and talking.
“To have that human connection, even walking outside at a distance, it was really cool,” Knight told Olympics.com.
Bowe added that she knew very quickly that the hockey forward would be in her life for a long time.
“Knowing her as a hockey player, it’s like this big, strong, powerful female,” Bowe said. “But then, when we got to know each other, she was soft, genuine, kind, almost shy. That really sparked my interest.”
Their engagement sparked joy for other Olympians, who were all over the comment section of the social media post. Bronze medal-winning rugby player Ilona Maher exclaimed “happy days” in a comment as Knight’s teammate Aerin Frankel wrote “SCREAMING.”
Fellow 2026 Olympians and married ice dancers, Evan Bates and Madison Chock, expressed their congratulations. Retired figure skater Adam Rippon left two comments, one of which was laughing at how they were engaged in sweatpants.
“OMGGGG I WANT TO FLIP TABLES I WANT TO SCREAM I WANT TO CRY,” Rippon wrote.
They are not the only Olympians walking away with rings, as skier Breezy Johnson’s boyfriend popped the question to her at the bottom of her super-G run in Cortina D’Ampezzo last week.
The ring box included an inscription with lyrics from Taylor Swift’s song “The Alchemy,” which talks about a man ignoring a trophy and running towards his love instead.
Swift offered her congratulations in the comment section of the couple’s Instagram post.
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