While cruising on the Seine for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, one of the Italian athletes lost a valuable possession: his wedding ring.

However, high jumper and flag bearer Gianmarco Tamberi, 32, managed to turn the unfortunate incident into a beautiful and poetic message about love that went viral.

In a joint Instagram post on July 27, he apologized in Italian to his wife Chiara Bontempi Tamberi for losing his ring in the Seine.

“Too much water, too many pounds lost in the last few months or maybe the uncontrollable enthusiasm for what we were doing,” he wrote, according to the NBC Olympics website. “Probably all three things, the fact remains that I felt (the ring) slip away, I saw it fly… I followed (it) with a glance until I saw (it) jumping in the boat.”

He put a positive spin on the situation, saying that if he had to lose the ring, he “couldn’t imagine a better place.”

“It will remain forever in the riverbed of the city of love, blown away while I was trying to carry the Italian tricolor as high as possible during the opening ceremony of the most important sporting evening in the world. If I had to think of an excuse, I would never have been so imaginative,” he continued.

“I think there is a very poetic side to yesterday’s misdeed. And if you want, we’ll throw yours into the river too, so they’ll stay together forever. And we’ll have another excuse to renew our vows and remarry, as you’ve always wanted.”

Tamberi added that he hoped the situation was a “good omen” for more gold to flow to him.

The three-time Olympian won gold at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where he shared the first-place medal in the high jump with Mutaz Barshim of Qatar.

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This article was originally published on TODAY.com.