The Paris Olympics 2024 are just a few months away, and the athletes have already started to sweat it out to remain at the top of their game during the event. However, not all of the athletes are having their best time while preparing for the sports meet in the French capital. One such athlete is American water poloist Maddie Musselman, who was gearing up to represent her nation in Paris in July.

However, her dreams of bringing glory to the United States had taken a back seat when she learned about her husband’s lung cancer, which led to a series of unexpected events in her life. To a surprise to Musselman herself, her husband backed the Olympian to keep her Paris Olympics 2024 dream alive and help Team America win their fourth consecutive Olympics gold in water polo.

An unfolding tale of love and faith

Musselman’s husband, Patrick Woepse, who himself is a swimmer, was having a bad cough, which later turned out to be lung cancer after diagnostics. Woepse was swimming across the English Channel on his 30th birthday, and soon after, his condition started to worsen. However, he did not want his wife to give up on water polo and her Olympic dream. In a YouTube video posted by NEWS CENTER Maine, Musselman discussed how her husband and coach encouraged her to participate in the event: “Pat from the beginning was like you’re not stopping playing water polo. I love watching you play,” she states.

She also shared a heartfelt update on her Instagram in October 2023, a week after the couple got married, and narrated the whole story and how they are going strong with the help of her friends and family after the diagnosis. While her husband acknowledges her wife and states he knows how much she has worked hard and how much the sport means to her, there is nothing better than watching her Southern California native wife play. With her husband by her side, Musselman would be looking to make it big at the Paris Olympics in 2024. Their love story is also one of its kind and needs to go out there.

How their fairy tale started

Maddie Musselman and Pat Woepse first met each other in January 2022 through Kodi Hill, one of her teammates at the University of California, Los Angeles. He got her contact number through Hill and tried reaching her, which ultimately went to voicemail after she ignored it due to an unknown number. However, luck had it, and she gave it a call back, and everything else followed. That call also made them fall for each other.

Read More: Us Women’s Water Polo Swimming Team Coach Says ‘This Team Isn’t as Good’ Amidst Worrying Performance Before 2024 Olympics

Woepse, who loved traveling, joined her love interest for the 2022 world championships in Hungary. After the US won the title, they stayed back for a vacation in Europe. He was also there with her during the world championship in Fukuoka, Japan, last year. Pat proposed to the two-time Olympic gold medalist in June and finally got married in September. It was their European retreat that made her realize that he was the one for her.