PARIS, France — Olympic rower Justin Best is leaving Paris with a gold medal and a fiancée.
Just days after helping Team USA win its first rowing gold medal in the men’s four class since 1960, Best popped the question to his girlfriend, Lainey Duncan, on live TV during a TODAY broadcast in Paris on Monday.
"Lainey Olivia Duncan, you are the love of my life. You have been with me since Day 1," Best said as he got down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend of 9 years.
"I knew you were special - it was the first date. I said to you, 'I wanted to go to the Olympics,' and you, without question, said 'Yeah, absolutely. Go for it,'" he described. "You are stunningly beautiful, ferociously intelligent. Your kindness is bent leaps and bounds — I don't know anyone that doesn't love you."
"This is going to be the easiest question of my life. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and raise a family together. Lainey, Will you marry me?"
Duncan immediately said yes and the two kissed with the Eiffel Tower in the background and as Best's family stood by holding baskets and baskets of yellow roses.
"Each yellow rose represents a day that you and I have been together," Best said. "Obviously we communicated through Snapchat. Our streak is 2,738 right now. So there are 2,738 yellow roses from Snapchat. Our love is truly now immortalized."
Last Thursday, Best, Liam Corrigan, Michael Grady and Nick Mead won the men's four final gold by beating out New Zealand and defending world champion Britain.
