Italian Olympian Gianmarco Tamberi’s letter to his wife is a masterclass in how to apologise…
The historic opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics 2024 left an indelible mark on the world for both right and wrong reasons but for Italian Olympian Gianmarco Tamberi, it became a poignant one.
As the Italian delegation was sailing across the River Seine to mark the opening ceremony, the high jump champion’s wedding ring slipped from his finger and fell into the river below. While any regular human being would bemoan the loss of the cherished ring and explain the sequence of events to their partner in a way regular human beings do, the Italian athlete was having none of it.
The Olympian chose to apologise to his wife Chiara Bontempi Tamberi through a heartfelt and poetic letter which he posted on Instagram.
“I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry,” Tamberi wrote, “Too much water, too many kilograms lost in the past few months or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm of what we were doing.”
He then goes on to describe the moment he felt the ring slip from his finger, “I saw it fly… I followed her with a 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. (sic).”
Tamberi added how he has made peace with the devastating situation in his heart, “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 tricolour as high as possible during the opening ceremony of the most important sporting event in the world.”
In the end, he chose to turn the unfortunate event into an opportunity to celebrate their love and union, “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 wrote, “I love you my love. May it be auspicious to come home with even bigger gold!!! (sic).”
Future husband, are you taking notes?!
Salva Mubarak is the Digital Editor of Manifest. In her free time, she likes to read murder mysteries, discover new KitKat flavours, and rank movie makeovers (not necessarily in that order). View Profile
