Paris 2024: How these sports couples are balancing Olympic training and wedding planning

For others, their respective sport brought them to find their significant other, sometimes in unconventional ways.

Water Polo star Alex Bowen was set up on a blind date by his teammate, where he met Hilary Hansen.

“I thought, ‘Okay, I’m not going to hear from this guy for a month, because he’s going to leave for the Olympics,” Hansen recalls.

“The next thing I knew, I was getting FaceTimes from Tokyo every day.”

While it may not necessarily be in the same vein, there is a certain level of commitment that comes with planning a wedding, much like devoting your life to your chosen discipline.

Although on different scales, they’re still ready to channel that energy into planning.

Two-time Olympic swimmer Abbey Weitzeil is ‘thriving’ in the balancing act of it all, as she aims to compete in Paris and then marry fiancé Michael Jensen.

“I thrive under pressure, I always have!” she says.

Women’s water polo star Maggie Steffens and partner Tom Gehret will wed two weeks after a prospective gold medal match, while rugby’s Charlotte Caslick is set to marry fellow Aussie rugby player Lewis Holland after four years of being engaged.

The first stop for each of these couples, though, is Paris 2024 and a chance to bid for what could be their first gold of the summer, soon followed by a wedding band.