Aussie hurdler Michelle Jenneke announces engagement after keeping relationship secret for years
By Amy Lyall|
Michelle Jenneke has shared the surprise news that she's engaged!?
The Olympian announced that she and fellow Aussie athletics star Alex Beck are set to tie the knot, sharing the news online after keeping their romance a secret.?
The 31-year-old hurdler simply captioned the post, "8.5 years in the making" with a red heart and ring emojis.?
Jenneke beamed as she flashed her ring to the cameras in the gorgeous announcement pictures.?
In another snap she planted a kiss on Beck as she placed a hand on his cheek, showing off what appears to be a three-stone design ring.?
The post has been flooded with congratulatory messages from fellow Aussie athletics stars including Mia Gross, Brooke Stratton, Nicola Olyslagers and Cameron McEntyre, along with other athletes.?
The engagement announcement is quite the hard launch from Jenneke, who has not posted about her partner before this.?
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Both Jenneke and Beck, a 400-metre runner who has three national titles to his name and was also selected for the Tokyo Olympics, have kept their romance private.?
Neither of them had posted about their relationship on social media prior to the engagement announcement, but did follow each other and like the others' posts.?
The Olympian is known for being notoriously private when it comes to her personal life and, while it seems many friends and those on the athletics circuit knew of her relationship, the couple chose to keep it off social media.?
Jenneke rose to international fame partly because of her 'jiggling' dance moves behind the starting blocks.?
She first drew attention for her fun moves while competing at the World Junior Championships in Barcelona back in 2012.?
She went to Paris for the Olympics last year, but revealed she contested the repechage round of the women's 100m hurdles with a ruptured hamstring.?
"... I ran today with one less hamstring than usual and obviously that was pretty difficult, but ... I said to the doctor, 'Can I still run?'" she told the media at the time.?
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"I didn't want my Olympic campaign to end the way it was yesterday and I really just wanted to give it my all today.
"I knew that making that semi-final and running under 13 seconds missing one of your hamstrings is probably pretty impossible, but I wanted to prove to myself and the rest of Australia that I've got grit in me and I'm not going to give up easily.
"The general consensus was that it's a full rupture so I can't make that any worse, so provided I was still hurdling in a way that wasn't jeopardising other parts of my body, if I wanted to race then I had the all-clear to do that."
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