WATCH: Visually impaired Paralympic athlete proposes to guide runner after finishing race
The runners got engaged after finishing the women’s T11 200-meter heat (not pictured) on Thursday. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
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(NEXSTAR) — A couple of Paralympic athletes will soon be running to the altar together.
Keula Nidreia Pereira Semedo, a visually impaired sprinter competing for Cape Verde, didn’t qualify for the semi-finals during the women’s T11 200-meter heats, but she still won quite a consolation prize at the finish line: a surprise marriage proposal.
Manuel Antonio Vaz da Veiga, who runs alongside Semedo as her partner and guide, dropped down on one knee and popped the question on Thursday surrounded by their fellow Paralympians and guides.
“I always had the dream of getting married, but we hadn’t planned anything so far,” Semedo told reporters, per CNN. “We haven’t spoken about it, and I wasn’t expecting it at all.”
Semedo, of course, accepted the proposal.
The organizers of the Paralympic Games celebrated the moment on Twitter, writing, “May the two of them run together for life!”
Guide runners who work with visually impaired athletes provide support and communicate with the Paralympians during training and competition. The two are tethered together during the races, allowing them to maintain pacing and give direction along the track.
It’s unclear how long Semedo and Vaz da Veiga have been training together, though she resumed training in 2012 in Portugal after previously competing as a teenager in Cape Verde. Semedo, 32, also lists Vaz de Veiga as her “influence” in her official Olympics.com profile.
