Team USA athletes Hilary Knight and Brittany Bowe are trading in Olympic rings for engagement rings.
Knight, 36, and Bowe, 37, announced their engagement in a sweet Instagram video on Wednesday, February 18.
In the clip, Knight — captain of the Team USA women’s hockey team — got down on one knee and presented a ring inside a red velvet box to Bowe, a gold medal-winning speedskater. Bowe nodded her head “yes” as Knight stood up and placed the ring on her new fiancée’s finger.
The video ended with a photo of Knight and Bowe smiling at each other as Bowe showed her ring to the camera.
“Olympics brought us together,” the couple captioned the joint post. “This one made us forever.”
Knight and Bowe first crossed paths at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, but it wasn’t until the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics that the pair fell in love after spending time together in the Olympic Village.
“It was just a really good way to get to know her, going for walks, getting out of our suites,” Knight told Olympics.com. “To have that human connection, even walking outside at a distance, it was really cool.”
Bowe added that they’ve been “inseparable” ever since.
Hilary Knight Sarah Stier/Getty Images
The 2026 Milano Cortina Games marks Knight’s fifth and final Olympics. She won a gold medal in 2018 and silver in 2010, 2014 and 2022. Knight and Team USA will compete against Canada in the women’s hockey gold medal game on Thursday, February 19.
Bowe is also wrapping up her Olympic career after the 2026 Winter Games, which is her fourth time competing in the Olympics. She won bronze in 2018 in women’s team pursuit and bronze in 2022 in the women’s 1000 meters.
Bowe finished in fourth place in the 1000 meters and women’s team pursuit in Milan. Her final event will be the 1500 meters on Thursday.
Brittany Bowe Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Bowe and Knight are the third couple to get engaged at the 2026 Olympics.
Ukrainian freestyle skier Kateryna Kotsar said “yes” to fiancé Bohdan Fashtryha’s proposal on Valentine’s Day. Meanwhile, Team USA alpine ski racer and gold medalist Breezy Johnson got engaged to Connor Watkins at the Olympic finish line in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Thursday, February 12. The engagement came moments after Johnson, 30, crashed on the super-G course.
“You have worked so hard and achieved so much, and yet you still find the time to love me, to make me feel special, and most importantly, you help me love myself,” Watkins said during the sweet exchange, per the Today show. “There’s only one way I want to spend the rest of my life, and that is by your side. I love you. Will you marry me?”
Johnson later showed off her ring on Today.
“When you make mistakes like that in ski racing, you feel kind of stupid … Seeing him [at the bottom of the mountain] was really exciting,” she said.
Watkins added, “She got up after the crash and was good, and that was a sigh of relief. And then my heart started racing again because I knew I was about to get down on my own knee and propose.”
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