- ASHTON EATON & BRIANNE THEISEN-EATON
Tagged the ‘Olympic Power Couple’, USA’s Ashton Eaton and his Canadian wife, Brianne are the No.1 couple to watch out for at the ongoing Rio Olympics. The Eatons are Track and Field’s biggest couple at the moment, reigning World Indoor Champions in their respective events and hope to make history by becoming the first married couple to win individual GOLD medals for different nations at the same Olympics.
While Ashton (28) holds the World Record (WR) in the Decathlon and is the reigning Olympic and World Champion in the event, Brianne (27) is a World Championships Silver medallist, narrowly losing GOLD to Great Britain’s Jessica Ennis-Hill at Beijing 2015. The pair met at the University of Oregon as teenagers, before the American finally asked Brianne out on their first official date on Valentine’s Day in 2008.
The rest as they say is history. They got married in July 2013 and their coach Harry Marra officiated the wedding! The Eatons are still based in Oregon, train together and motivate each other. Ahead of the Rio Games, the couple who are deemed favourites in their respective events, opened a website and Instagram account called ‘We Are Eatons’, to inspire themselves and other athletes to reach for their goals.
Ashton enjoys being married to someone who can identify with his career and the sacrifice it comes with: “It’s definitely beneficial to have the support of someone who’s also trying to do the same. When you have someone else going through this it’s like, ‘Oh, you know what? I’m not the only one suffering here.”
Speaking about how massive it would be to win GOLD in their respective events, Brianne said: “The gold medals together would be huge. But I think it is more like finishing that story, like closing the book on that whole journey. Since 2007 when both of our careers kind of started and took off, we have trained together and we have been going through every day together. The two gold medals would be more like the cherry on top.”
We hope these spouses can achieve their ‘Couple goals’ in Rio. Are there any other couples you would have loved to see on this list?
