Talk about turning a loss into a win.
Italian Paralympic sprinter Alessandro Ossola got engaged to his partner, Arianna Mandaradoni, at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
The sweet moment occurred after Ossola was eliminated in the men’s 100-meter T63 race at the Stade de France on Sunday. Ossola, 36, came in fifth place, but won over thousands of Paralympic fans with his grand romantic gesture.
Soon after his loss, he jogged up to his parents and Mandaradoni in the stands, dropped to his knee and popped the question.
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“She answered me ‘You’re crazy, you’re crazy’ and she kissed me, so it was exciting really,” Ossola told the BBC World Service. “I was unlucky, I didn’t achieve the final and I was really sad about it. But after three minutes, you know life is strange, I was really happy.”
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Ossola posted a video of the proposal to his Instagram account.
On Monday, World Para Athletics shared a pic of the proposal on Instagram with a quote from Ossola describing the support he’s received from Mandaradoni.
“She always follows me during my competitions,” he said. “I met her in Sanremo (Italy) in 2019 during a summer where I just wanted to be relaxed and I was not looking for anything. Life is strange. Sometimes it unbends your journey on an incredible day, even when it seems that things are not working well.”
Ossola expanded on how much Mandaradoni supports him during an interview with Olympics.com.
“Our relationship is like a maelstrom because every athlete needs people around them to push them,” he told the organization.
“Sometimes she believed in me more than I believed in myself, and that’s something truly amazing. ‘You can do it, you can succeed, you can, you can,’ she would say,” he continued. “This is something everyone needs, and I hope that everyone finds someone like her. She is my partner… for life.”
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Part of the significance of Ossola’s proposal is rooted in his road to the Paralympic Games.
In 2015, he lost his first wife and had to have most of his left leg amputated after a motorcycle accident.
“I’m a positive guy but at the beginning [it] was a hard time,” he told the BBC. “But sports help me exit this darkness, this turmoil.”
Thanks to pouring his passion into para sports, Ossola qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where he finished in sixth place after advancing to the finals.
Given that para sports helped him find a bright future in the wake of a tragic past, he told the BBC that he hopes this year’s games help change people’s perceptions of disabled athletes.
“I don’t like when the people say ‘You are disabled, ah, you are going to Paralympics,’” Ossola told the BBC. “It’s not like that. You are going to the Paralympics if you are one of the best athletes in the world. This is why I am proud to be here.”
