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Chinese Olympic Badminton Player Gets Engaged After Winning Gold Medal in Paris

Stephen Douglas

Liu Yuchen proposes to Huang Ya Qiong after she won gold at the Paris Olympics.
Liu Yuchen proposes to Huang Ya Qiong after she won gold at the Paris Olympics. /

Huang Ya Qiong and Zheng Siwei of China won the gold medal in badminton mixed doubles at the Paris Olympics, defeating South Korea's Jeong Na-eun and Kim Won-ho in two sets. It's hard to imagine the day getting better from there, but Huang's boyfriend Liu Yuchen had other ideas.

As Huang and Zheng left the podium, Liu was waiting with flowers. A seemingly surprised Huang accepted the flowers and then Liu pulled out a ring and dropped to one knee to propose. She said yes.

Liu is in Paris representing China in men's doubles. He and teammate Ou Xuanyi are 3–1 in group play. Liu won silver at the Tokyo Olympics when he was partnered with Li Junhui. Fittingly, Huang and Zheng also took home silver in mixed doubles 2020.

It's been an incredibly busy Olympics for life events. This is actually the second proposal of the Paris games as two athletes from Argentina got engaged a few days ago. Then there was Ryan Murphy's wife doing a gender reveal after he won a bronze medal. It's only a matter of time until someone actually gets married during an event.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a Senior Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in journalism and media since 2008, and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Stephen spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and has previously written for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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