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Simon Eriksson wasn’t on anyone’s radar. When he made his first Olympics at sixteen, no one knew what to expect. It was the first time in over a century that the Olympics would have an 800 meter freestyle, and there were bigger fish in the pool than the young swimmer from Venezuela. No one paid Simon any attention because he wasn’t supposed to medal. Venezuela never medaled. In fact, since the games began, they’d only won two golds in the sport, and they were only even sending four swimmers to the games. The only time Simon’s name even appeared in the news was when people stated that it was odd that Venezuela would destroy their relay chances by taking a distance swimmer. The media around the globe thought it was stupid that a country with little hope of medaling to begin with would sacrifice an opportunity to have another chance.
So, when a sixteen-year-old from Venezuela touched the wall in a new world record in the preliminary round, people were a bit more than shocked. Suddenly, his name was on every announcer’s lips. Who was this kid who’d upended every prediction and poll? By the time Simon won the gold medal, every household in the world knew his name. Suddenly, the once invisible boy was now a celebrity.
Simon had the world in a chokehold. It seemed like every race he only got better and better. The homegrown hero narrative also helped his status. No one could get enough of the boy who’d trained in the neighborhood pool with only a lifeguard as his witness. By all reason, Simon should have never made it.
So, when the time of the 2021 World Championships arrived, Simon was no longer forgotten, rather the favorite. Now seventeen, Simon was in his prime. He was focused and confident in his abilities, and he didn’t take any nonsense from anyone. If the press asked him about anything other than the race he’d just completed, it quickly became evident that the only answer they’d ever receive was, “I thought this was a swim meet?” His signature smirk and the twinkle in his eye made the answer seem less arrogant and he quickly became known as someone who never let anything or anyone stand in his way.
Until, that is, he lost the gold medal in Budapest to Wilhelm Vasa.
Wille, as he insisted he be called, had steadily climbed the world rankings throughout the years. His mother had been one of Sweden’s few gold medalists in the sport during her prime, so when Wille started swimming, the press was already paying attention. It had been rare enough for Sweden to have one swimming star; for her son to be even better seemed almost preposterous. Still, no one thought he was as good as Simon.
For every interview after every race, Wille knew that he’d get the same question: “Do you think you can beat Simon Eriksson at the World Championships this year?” And every time, Wille would just smile and say, “I don’t know the future, do you?”
A year younger than Simon, Wille had just missed the cutoff for the last Olympics. He’d initially been an automatic part of the team, but right before the team trials, the International Olympic Committee had announced that they were mandating all athletes be sixteen or older. Even though he was only a few months shy, there was no chance that they’d bend the rules. So, thus far, Wille and Simon had never competed against each other. They swam the same race, but until Budapest, they’d never crossed paths at a meet.
For both prelims and semi-finals, Simon maintained his lead. Both times, Simon took first, Wille took second, and then third was left for everyone else to try and fight for. There was no question that the top two places belonged to the two teenagers. But still, by the time finals began, it seemed set in stone that Simon was going to defend his Olympic gold with a matching one from the World Championships.
The first fourteen laps, Simon held the lead. In fact, Wille had dropped down to fourth and everyone in the arena was watching with bated breaths to see if he would even make it to the podium. But on lap fifteen, it was as though Wille was lit on fire. Suddenly, he had passed the third place swimmer and was quickly catching up to the swimmer in second place. On the turn into the final lap, Wille had pulled ahead. There were fifty meters left. Fifty meters to catch Simon. Halfway through the last lap, Wille edged ahead. When he hit the wall, the arena erupted as they realized that Wille had pulled off the impossible; he’d beat Simon.
Everyone seemed to expect that the two would talk. Whether to congratulate each other, or just to laugh about the insanity of the final two laps, everyone expected that finally, the two young swimming stars would have to interact.
But, as the stadium watched on, the two boys got out of the pool, went to their respective coaches, and didn’t even look at each other. Even on the podium, neither one even spared a glance to the boy standing beside him.
The press was waiting for both of them like vultures. Surely with a devastating loss on one side and an insane win on the other, neither one would be able to stick to their typical answers of avoidance. But, when asked how it felt to beat Simon, Wille simply replied, “I thought this was a swim meet?” and when Simon was asked whether he thought he’d beat Wille in the next year’s World Championships, he simply smirked and replied, “I don’t know the future, do you?”
Somehow, in a weird twist of fate, the two had found the perfect system. When one of them won, they would avoid the talk of the other by only allowing questions about their own individual swim, and when the other lost, they would simply pass on all questions about future competitions by saying that they couldn’t predict what hadn’t yet occurred.
The press thought it was maddening.
Suddenly, both boys found themselves surrounded by rumors. “They hate each other,” one insider source claimed. “They’ve never talked,” was all either coach would say with tight lips. As far as anyone knew, the two boys were committed to the idea that they would meet at World Championships every year, never speak, and spend the rest of the year training to beat the other when they met again.
The cycle continued every year. Sometimes Wille would win, but more often than not, Simon would pull ahead. Both were entirely committed to keeping the other’s name out of their mouth to the point where the idea of a hatred or a long-standing feud seemed like it couldn’t possibly just be a rumor.
At the Paris Olympics, the press watched closely as Wille and Simon dominated the pool each round. They were in separate races up until finals, but their times still got compared: “Wille can cut a second off his time if he watches his breathing,” or, “Simon needs to even out his strokes on the final one hundred meters.” It was endless.
Finally, the finals came and Wille and Simon were in the same race. The starting horn blew, the swimmers dove into the water, and the race began.
It seemed almost routine at this point. After the first race where Wille had struggled only to surge back at the end, they’d both been more consistent. Most of the time, whoever took the lead would keep it, only trading places a few times throughout the race. It was almost more interesting for those in the crowd to watch the race for third once one of the two pulled ahead, knowing that whoever did it first was ultimately almost guaranteed to win.
But Paris was different.
At the last Worlds, Wille had knocked off Simon’s world record set at the Olympics, which was set three years prior. Now, at twenty, four years after he made his Olympic debut, Simon was determined to take back his crown.
Where normally the two were neck and neck throughout almost the entire race, in Paris, Simon seemed almost superhuman. Normally, it was him and Wille and then the rest of the field almost half a pool length back. But in the final swim of the Paris Olympics’ 800 meter race, it was Simon at one end of the pool, Wille in the middle, and everyone else at the opposite end. This wasn’t a race between all eight swimmers. Neither was it a race between Wille and Simon. No. This was a race of Simon against the World Record clock.
When Simon hit the wall with a final time of 7 minutes and 32 seconds, the stadium was so loud the television stations couldn’t even hear the announcers if they’d tried to talk. Simon had not only reclaimed his world record, he had destroyed it. And with it, he had proven that he was and would always be the king of the 800 meter freestyle.
The camera panned over to Wille expecting to see annoyance at not only losing his record, but also at losing his chance to earn gold, but his face was a mask. After the announcers made their jokes about the long standing feud, the camera moved on. If it had stayed, it would have caught the faintest of smiles appearing on Wille’s face as he glanced through his dripping hair towards the lane containing the new Olympic champion.
Over the next four years, Wille and Simon continued to dominate the 800 meter free. Most people had assumed that eventually, one, if not both of them would reach their limit and either get left in the dust by the other, or both would fall back as new swimmers rose and took their place on the podium. But it seemed that every year, Simon and Wille only got faster.
Neither of them ever reached the insane time that Simon had set in Paris again, but they were still maintaining an almost embarrassing difference between themselves and the rest of the field. And yet still, every post race interview, their answers remained steadfast. They would only talk about their own swims and they would not try to guess at what the future would bring.
Wille and Simon arrived in Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics, and not one commentator questioned that they would both be leaving with a medal. One of them would have gold, and the other would have silver, but both would take home one of the two. It was certain.
Since that first World Championships that they had competed at together where Wille had won gold, he had won gold an additional two times to Simon’s four. Simon had won the World Championships the year after the Olympics and the year prior to this year’s Olympics, with Wille getting silver. Wille had only managed a win during the 2026 Worlds. He was never far behind, but he hadn’t managed to fully establish dominance in the way Simon had. And Simon had the two Olympic golds. According to the press, Wille was privately furious and was determined to win in LA. Nothing and no one, including Simon, was going to stand in his way.
During prelims, they were again in separate races. It was almost comical when Simon, who swam second, hit the wall, only to find out that he’d gotten the exact same time and would enter semi-finals tied for first with Wille.
Semi-finals were much the same. Simon was only a hair ahead, but there was no question that the finals was still anyone’s race. There were no obvious areas to improve for either of them. Now twenty-four and twenty-three, they had settled into their routines, and it was more the luck of the hour as to who was going to have a better race. They were almost the same in their form. Their strokes into the water were clean, their turns were fast, and when they kicked off the wall, it was as though they were being propelled halfway across the water.
By all accounts, the final was just there to see who would stand higher on the podium. But they would both be there, and both the Swedish and Venezuelan national anthems would play.
Right before the starting horn, one of the announcers offhandedly mentioned that Wille seemed to be shaking a bit in his starting stance. He joked, “I’d be nervous if I was racing for gold against Simon Eriksson too!”
The horn sounded and all eight swimmers hit the water with a clap. Simon, entering the finals with the fastest time, was in lane four, while Wille, in second, was in lane five. During the first fifty meters, Wille and Simon pulled ahead. No one was surprised.
What was surprising though was that by the eighth lap, it was Wille who was barreling down the pool and leaving Simon behind. By lap twelve, Wille was still in the lead and Simon didn’t look to be gaining any ground. It seemed that, for the first time since the 2016 Olympics, there would be a new Olympic champion.
The crowd started to get louder as everyone started to realize that Wilhelm Vasa was almost certainly going to win his first Olympic gold. The Swedish coaches and team were jumping on the sidelines with excitement while the Venezuelan crowd was holding their breath.
Suddenly though, the pool descended into madness. Without any of the commentators noticing, Wille had stopped swimming and the crowd started screaming as he began to sink under the water. The screams got louder when Simon suddenly changed course and crossed under the lane line into lane five, swimming rapidly towards Wille instead of the wall, instantly disqualifying himself.
Everyone on the Venezuelan side of the pool was yelling at Simon asking what he was thinking, and the crowd was still in chaos when Simon finally resurfaced with Wille held tightly to his side, almost a minute and a half after Wille had first sunk under the water.
It was immediately apparent that Wille wasn’t conscious and the crowd, screaming and cheering only seconds before, was now completely silent. As they watched Simon hold Wille against his stomach and swim on his back as quickly as possible towards the wall, the lifeguards, who had finally jumped into the pool, followed a few paces behind.
He reached the wall as the other swimmers reached the end of the eight hundred, and was met by the Swedish coaches and the paramedics on duty. Wille was pulled from his arms and the crowd watched as Simon pushed himself out of the water and almost instantly ran over to where they had laid Wille on the pool deck. As the paramedics began to perform CPR, trying to push water out from Wille’s lungs, the crowd watched in confusion as Simon crouched to the ground and burst into tears, his coach running over and trying to drag him away from the cameras and crowd. The crowd had gone loud again and no one could hear what was being said, but it was obvious that Simon was fighting every attempt to get him to leave Wille. He looked absolutely terrified, but it was easy to tell that he was demanding that he be allowed to accompany Wille in the ambulance. When his coach finally gave up, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation, Simon didn’t even hesitate to take advantage of his now free arm as he ran out, following the stretcher.
In the arena, the announcers were speechless. Not only was the gold medal not going to belong to either Wilhelm Vasa or Simon Eriksson for the first time in almost a decade of races, but neither of them had even finished the race, and it wasn’t clear if Wille’s heart had restarted before both Simon and the stretcher had left the pool deck. The entire Swedish and Venezuelan teams and coaching staff had cleared out almost instantly as well, so there was no one to ask about what was going on.
The only question on anyone’s mind was, “Why would Simon intentionally disqualify himself?” It seemed stupid for him to have given up his chance at gold for a man he didn’t even like as far as anyone knew. And across the world, Simon was getting torn to shreds for letting his country down, even while Wille was getting sent well wishes. One would have thought that making sure someone lived would be more important than a gold medal, but in most people’s minds, Simon’s job was to finish the race. The lifeguards were there to make sure everyone lived.
His reaction after the fact was also confusing. For two men who never interacted with each other and whose coaches claimed had never talked, Simon seemed more concerned than what might be expected over a stranger. And to many, his demands to follow along in the ambulance were an overstep when Wille’s family had been in the stands.
News channels had tried to get a statement either from the Vasa family, the Swedish Olympic Committee, or anyone on the Venezuelan Swimming team, but had received no reply. The most the Vasas would give them was that they were not at all upset or surprised that Simon had gone in the ambulance, which only created more questions than answers.
Finally, five hours after Wille had passed out in the middle of the pool, Simon uploaded a picture onto his social media. In it, it was easy to see his arms wrapped tightly around Wille’s waist and Wille’s hand resting against his cheek, posted with the simple caption of, “I love my country more than anything, but there is no world in which I would risk letting my husband drown.”
The world instantly turned into madness.
Not only did Simon’s caption imply that he and Wille actually had interacted, it also clearly stated that not only were they not in a feud, they were married, clearly having been together for a while if they had already reached that point. Every news channel and reporter was suddenly left in confusion as they tried to think back to whether Simon or Wille had ever given any kind of indication that they’d even talked, much less considered each other friends.
They never even looked at each other on the winner’s podium. They never even shook hands or clapped each other on the shoulder after wins. They hadn’t missed anything, because there was genuinely nothing to miss. People combed through hours of race footage, interviews, and article responses. They looked through social media, followers lists, and liked tweets. There were zero indications on any front that the two had anything more to do with each other than a rotating title of World or Olympic champion. They hadn’t missed anything.
But yet, they obviously had.
Somehow, under all their noses, Simon and Wille had met, started dating, continued dating, gotten engaged, and then gotten married, and not one particle of their relationship had leaked to the press. It quickly became obvious that the Swedish and Venezuelan Swimming Federations had been unaware as, when interviewed, both admitted that the news came as a surprise to them as well. Their coaches had not been lying when they said that as far as they knew, Wille and Simon had never talked. Apparently their entire relationship was separate from the pool.
Finally, Wille and Simon agreed to an interview. Since his post, Simon had received significantly less hate, as apparently it was acceptable to lose to save his husband but not a stranger, and the focus had shifted onto questions about their relationship.
As people tuned into the live interview, they were still surprised to see how close Wille and Simon were sitting to each other and to see their hands tangled together between them as Wille rested his head on Simon’s shoulder, still obviously tired after everything that had happened.
The host first greeted them before inquiring about Wille’s health. Simon inhaled sharply at the reminder as Wille visibly squeezed his hand tighter into his own. There was a brief moment of eye contact between the two before Wille answered, “I’m lucky to be here. I was without oxygen for over two minutes before Simon got me both out of the water and out of the pool to the paramedics. If it had been any longer, I’ve been told that I would have died.” He paused before continuing, “I’m very lucky that Simon isn’t used to having anyone that far in front of him so he was actually able to see me in his peripheral vision. For once, I’m not even partially sad that I was leaving him in my dust in that final race.”
Simon rolled his eyes and shoved at Wille’s shoulder before he spoke himself.
“What is horrifying to me was everyone else’s response. We’re told when we first start swimming that if something happens, there are lifeguards to make sure we’re okay. Everyone tells you to focus on your own race because the lifeguards will take care of everyone else. But that wasn’t what happened. I saw Wille start to sink and initially, even if I felt like it would kill me, I was going to finish the race. But I didn’t hear a splash. I knew that the lifeguards hadn’t entered the water even though they should have. I knew the crowd had noticed because I could hear the cheers become screams, but I hadn’t felt a splash.”
He took a shuddering breath as Wille reached a hand to brush a stray tear from his cheeks. Simon looked sad before he continued, “And then, I finally made the decision to break every rule I’d been taught to make sure he was okay, and everyone was mad at me. And I just don’t understand how everyone is upset that I made sure he was okay, even if he hadn’t been my husband, when the lifeguards didn’t do their jobs.”
Wille took over again as he looked towards the host, “Like I said, I’m very lucky to be here. I don’t know whether the lifeguards simply weren’t paying attention given that it was an Olympic level and nothing was supposed to happen, or whether there was something else going on, but the long and short of it is that I wouldn’t be here if Simon had followed the training we all receive like everyone else in the pool did that day.”
He looked a bit embarrassed before he continued with the next part, quite clearly seeking Simon’s reassurance with his eyes before stating, “In terms of my health, I’d had a panic attack right before the finals and hadn’t been able to get in contact with Simon like I normally would because we were at a meet. So, when the starting horn sounded, my breathing still wasn’t fully recovered.”
He laughed almost bitterly as he said the next part, “Apparently all the nervous energy was the secret to finally beating this guy by more than a few seconds.”
At Simon’s head shake, he clarified, “but I would never want to experience that again. Because my breathing was already off, I breathed in water when I did the turn for lap thirteen and because I tried to keep going, I wasn’t breathing in any air at all and was choking on the water in my throat. It really was just that I got water in my lungs, so I promise I’m fine, but if I ever panic like that before a race again, I’ve made a commitment to those close to me that I will scratch the race no matter how big it may be.”
Everyone in the room could hear the unspoken implication that that commitment was made to the other swimmer sitting directly beside him.
The host, feeling braver now that she’d asked for the necessary update on his health, switched gears and asked the question everyone was waiting for.
“So how on earth did you two start a relationship? And when?”
Simon laughed brightly as he turned towards Wille and asked if he could answer. At Wille’s responding nod and equally happy expression, Simon turned back towards the interviewer and started.
“It’s so funny because, when my name was in the news at sixteen and they were talking about my home-grown origins, somehow no one found out or mentioned that I’d actually grown up in Sweden. My dad was Swedish, and my Mama is Venezuelan, but we lived in Sweden up until my dad’s death.”
Simon waved away the condolences with a small acknowledging smile before he continued, “Wille and I actually were neighbors. He went to the fancy private school and had their fancy pool to train in, and I trained in his basement. His childhood home had a fifty meter pool because his Mama used it to train back when she was still competing, and then they never moved, so by the time Wille started swimming, it was still in great condition.
“After my dad died when I was nine, my mom moved us to Venezuela because we had dual citizenship, but Wille and I kept in contact. He’d send me all the practices from his school swim team and I’d send him tapes of me swimming, and he and his mom would correct my technique. I only had access to the neighborhood pool after the costs of the move when I wasn’t at school, but we’d still sometimes go to Sweden for certain holidays to see my dad’s side of the family, and Wille and I would always race while I was there.”
Wille laughs and cuts in, “Before you ask, yes, he was always a bit faster.”
Simon smiled but kept going, “When I was fifteen and Wille was fourteen, we started dating. We were obviously long distance for most of the year, but that didn’t really matter at that age. We didn’t know there was anything to miss that we couldn’t do on FaceTime.” They both shared a conspiratory grin at that before Wille dissolved into laughter and Simon shoved his shoulder as they both seemed to forget they were on live television for a moment.
Wille finally calmed down and took over, “When I found out that I wasn’t going to be able to go to the Olympics, I told Simon he needed to win for both of us. And he obviously more than did that. I was so pissed at the time that my parents hadn’t let me be there in the stands because I thought I’d missed my only chance to see my boyfriend set a world record.”
Simon smirked, “Little did you know.”
With only a slight eye roll, Wille continued, “We’d already talked with my mom about how to handle any potential media. She hated our idea, but both Simon and I thought it would be funny to give everyone absolutely nothing, especially since everyone kept asking Simon about his personal life and kept running with the poor boy from Caracas story. We just wanted people to shut up… When I started winning races in Sweden and kept getting asked about him, it became sort of a challenge to see how hidden we could keep our relationship. My mom had cautioned us that people would never leave us alone otherwise,” he shrugged.
Simon’s face broke into a grin as he cut in, “You know, the whole switching responses thing wasn’t planned actually.” He laughed, “I wasn’t planning on ever losing to Wille so I didn’t think we’d ever need a backup plan. I got lucky that we were on the same page and just traded responses because I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had to start answering media questions right after the most confusing loss of my career.”
Both of them were looking at each other with an almost sickeningly fond expression as they quickly skipped forward, “We got engaged after the Paris Olympics actually. I was twenty and Wille was nineteen, and neither of us were going to college. We’d been together for so long at that point, that our parents agreed that if we wanted to, it made sense for us to get married. It was an even better celebration after the race we’d both had, though Wille had to endure some teasing for getting left in my dust.”
Wille had retaken Simon’s hand and was smiling softly at his husband as Simon continued, “We got married right before the 2025 World Champs. It’s entirely my fault that Wille didn’t beat me that day. He’d been consistently swimming faster than me but I got a little too rou-” Wille’s hand slapped over Simon’s mouth as he shook his head frantically as though to remind Simon that they probably shouldn’t talk about their sex life on air.
Simon just raised an eyebrow as if to ask if he could continue, before Wille slowly removed his hand as if he was scared Simon would finish the rest of his sentence.
“Anyways, because I have dual citizenship, I’m able to swim for Venezuela even though I live in Sweden now. I obviously have a coach, but I don’t normally train with her outside of the two months before the international races when I fly back to Venezuela for training and stay with my mom. The rest of the time, I train with Kristina, Wille’s mom. Wille and I don’t train together because we want to make sure we don’t get comfortable and end up falling back on time, so we train with separate coaches and separate pools. I just always take enough pictures when I’m in Venezuela to make sure everyone thinks I’m there the whole year,” he shrugged, “but Wille and I have lived in Stockholm since right before we got married.”
The interviewer seemed shocked at how off they’d all been about the two before she questioned, “but why did you both refuse to look at or even talk to each other at meets?”
Wille looked a bit sheepish at the question as Simon rolled his eyes fondly towards his husband.
“That was my idea. I knew that if I talked to Simon after a win I’d want to kiss him to congratulate him, and if I talked to him after a loss, I’d want to kiss him to comfort him and he’d want to kiss me to congratulate me… We weren’t ready to share our relationship with all the drama that was already happening with the world records and medals, so we just decided to not talk when we were at the same pool at all. In the pool, we both needed to be totally focused and committed to our own races. Outside of the pool, we were good about being ‘Wille and Simon’. The rivals and feud stuff was unfortunate, but we couldn’t continue to not talk if we wanted to clear that up, so we just left it alone. Both of us thought it more important to focus on swimming our best instead of constantly being asked about our relationship.”
Simon pointed out, “Plus it meant that when we fought, no one even noticed that we were off with each other.”
“Did you fight at some point?” the interviewer asked.
Both nodded as Wille said, “Oh definitely. After Simon messed up my chances at the 2025 World Champs, I was pissed, even though we’d just gotten married. I got over it because I was the one who chose to share a hotel room at Worlds even though both our parents said it was a bad idea, but I was mad for a few days. I wouldn’t say we’ve ever been in a full on fight with each other, but we get upset and have differences like any other couple.”
Simon nodded, “It’s just easier to get past everything because we’ve been together so long, and both of us know that the pool isn’t our relationship. We obviously get ranked in the pool, but in our relationship we are both equals. Neither of us would intentionally sabotage the other because we love each other and as much as I want myself to succeed, I want to see him succeed too.”
“So not rivals?”
“No,” they both laughed, “not in life at least. We do absolutely compete in the pool, but outside of the pool, he’s my favorite person in the world.”
At Wille’s declaration, Simon smiled and pressed a kiss to his husband’s cheek. It was obvious to both the interviewer and every viewer around the world that this was a love that would last a lifetime. It had stood the test of distance, competition, victory, and defeat, and it was obvious that when it came down to it, both of them would trade every gold medal in the world to make sure the other was okay.
The interview continued with some questions about different moments in their career and their future plans, and for once, rather than answering with avoidance, both Wille and Simon seemed more than happy to share.
Towards the end of the interview, the host asked, “So what now? How will you two interact on the pool deck at future meets?”
Simon and Wille shared a glance before Wille motioned with his head for Simon to answer, seemingly growing tired as he’d been spending most of his time since the race sleeping in order to recover, “We’ve decided that nothing is going to change in regards to how we interact at meets. Both of us still need to focus on performing our best, even if people now know about our relationship. Both of our countries have strict rules on public affection as well, so as much as we’ll definitely kiss each other congratulations after we leave the arena, people shouldn’t expect it on the pool deck or during the medal ceremony.”
Wille nodded before adding, “We don’t just represent ourselves at meets, we represent our countries, so there’s a certain level of professionalism we have to follow.”
“Exactly, so don’t expect much to change, though we may at least smile at each other on the podium now,” he laughed. “But neither of us want to bring our personal lives into our work, so don’t get upset when we go back to our scripted replies when you ask us about anything other than our own swim.”
Wille shook his head in exasperation, but didn’t disagree with his husband.
“So who of the two of you do you expect to come out on top at Worlds next year, assuming you’re both fit to swim?”
Simon rolled his eyes and was about to give their default answer when Wille cut in, “Simon will get gold. He’s always been a bit better than me at most things, and he’ll have an additional two months of training over me since I have to be out of the water while I’m waiting for my heart to be cleared. But after this year, who knows?”
Simon reached over and squeezed his husband’s hand, obviously knowing that in spite of the nonchalance that the statement was said with, Wille would rightfully be sad at having to both be out of the pool and not being as prepared to compete as he might want.
Neither of them were going to hold it against the other though. Wille had gotten silver to Simon’s gold enough times during their lives to be more than fine with celebrating his husband’s win. Sure, it was always fun to come out on top, but they both won every time they hit the water together. They won every time they pushed their keys into the lock of their front door and got to rinse off the chlorine and massage away the tiredness of a long day of practice together. They won every time because they were a pair, not just competitors. When one of them won, the other won as well. And second place wasn’t really a loss anyways.
The interview ended with a close up shot of their rings.
Simon’s was gold, and Wille’s was silver.