Athlete accused of ‘stealing the spotlight’ for proposing to girlfriend after she won gold

You’d think that after winning a gold medal at the Olympic games, hitting the very heights of sporting achievement, an athlete would get a moment to enjoy it for themselves.

However, a male athlete has been criticised on social media for proposing to his girlfriend and fellow athlete after she’d won gold at Paris 2024.

Chinese badminton player Huang Yaqiong had just won gold in the badminton mixed doubles when her boyfriend Liu Yuchen proposed to her.

Yuchen, who had won silver in badminton doubles at Tokyo 2020, dropped to one knee during the medal ceremony and asked her: “I’ll love you forever! Will you marry me?”

“I said yes,” Yaqiong wrote on Instagram. “Thanks for making my day.”

The moment was shown on the big screen at the games, and the crowd celebrated with the pair.

However, the reaction on social media has been less enthusiastic, with plenty of people accusing Yuchen of making her biggest moment of sporting achievement about himself.

Julian Finney/Getty Images

One Twitter/X user wrote: “men are so selfish. she won the gold medal so he had to make the entire moment about him.”

Another said: “Men always trynna make it about themselves.”

One more added: “These guys really need to stop making these women's moment in the spotlight about them.”

“Let them celebrate their medal win and propose in private,” a user commented.

However, not all the reaction was negative, with one summing up the thoughts of some social media users by writing: “this actually cute idk why yall mad.”

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