USA Olympics star Gabby Thomas has revealed she is engaged to her longtime boyfriend Spencer McManes.
The 28-year-old Thomas, who won three gold medals at the Paris Olympics last year, announced the news on social media via an interview with Vogue.
Thomas said the proposal was a surprise, saying about her partner: ‘Normally he’s very bad with surprises—and this was the one surprise I think I’ve ever witnessed him keep.’
McManes staged the romantic proposal on the rooftop of the AirBnB the couple had rented for a small staycation in Travis heights before the Olympian’s track season started backup.
He had decorated the space with flowers and had recruited her best friend and a photographer, Thomas revealed to Vogue.
Thomas and McManes, the founder of non-alcoholic seltzer brand Kaviva, began dating in the fall of 2022 but had first started talking a year before.
USA Olympics star Gabby Thomas has revealed she is engaged to her longtime boyfriend
Spencer McManes took the gold medalist by surprise when he popped the question
The couple have been dating since 2022 with the entrepreneur supporting Thomas in Paris
A mutual friend had floated the possibility of a flirtation between the two to the sprinter and, despite their Harvard-Yale rivalry, Thomas decided to grace McManes with an Instagram follow.
‘I got the notification that I had a new follower. I was like, ‘That’s crazy!” McManes recalled. ‘I immediately DM’d her and asked, ‘What did I do to earn a follow?”
After several months of online flirting, McManes finally took the plunge asking Thomas on a date and the rest is history.
The couple, who live in Austin, Texas, together and share a pug, have been very private in their relationship.
However, Thomas did share a rare glimpse of their relationship in a TikTok last October during a luxury getaway to the Maldives.
McManes made the trip to Paris last summer to watch on as his now-fiancée claimed Olympic gold in the 200m, and the 4-by-100 and the 4-by-400 relays.
Like Thomas, he is Ivy League educated, graduating from Yale in 2017 with a bachelor’s in political science and government.
The couple also share a student athlete bond with the entrepreneur having played football for the Yale Bulldogs.
Thomas graduated from Harvard University herself in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology and global health. She went on to obtain her masters in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
She has previously revealed that she ultimately wants to pursue a career in the medical field but first has her sights set on competing at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.