After the women's rugby final at the Rio Olympics last month, there was a particular photograph that made the headlines more than the medallists. Marjorie Enya, a manager at the Games, proposed to her partner and Brazil rugby player Isadora Cerullo. The two then kissed inside the Deodoro stadium around hundreds of people, including photographers and videographers. The photograph of that kiss became one of the most iconic ones to be taken at the Rio Olympics, along with Usain Bolt smiling past the finish line. It became a symbol of inclusion for the LGBTQ community as well.
And now, the Rio Paralympics has an iconic kiss of its own.
On Friday, the Canadian women's wheelchair basketball team beat China 63-52 to finish fifth in the competition. Following the match, Adam Lancia, who plays for the Canadian men's wheelchair basketball team, approached his wife Jamey Jewells, who is in the women's team, before the two were photographed in, as the Toronto Star put it, "a private moment of celebration".
Lancia was born without feet and ankles. He was fitted with prosthetic limbs when he was just one year old. He played football and baseball during his childhood, but discovered wheelchair basketball when he was nine, and fell in love with it.
Jewells was badly injured in a car accident when she was 14, ending up breaking many ribs and her vertebrae. She spent almost two years in hospital following the crash, before her occupational therapist suggested she take up wheelchair basketball to help in the recovery process.
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