- Kearns was surprised by her long-distance NFL star boyfriend
- The water polo star was surprised to see him in the stands in Paris
- Kearns was minutes away from playing in the gold medal match.
Australian water polo star Tilly Kearns has revealed the emotional moment her long-distance football player boyfriend surprised her at the Paris Olympics.
Kearns was playing for gold against Spain in the women’s water polo final at the Paris Games, but got the surprise of her life when she was entering the swimming area and saw her boyfriend Justin Dedich in the stands.
Dedich, who plays for the Los Angeles Rams, was supposed to be 5,600 miles away preparing for an NFL game.
“First of all, he’s a rookie in the NFL and he had his first NFL game the next day, so I literally didn’t even think about it,” Kearns explained in a TikTok video.
“He was just doing his thing, I was doing mine, we just knew we couldn’t be there to support each other in person.”
Kearns is visibly shocked in the video when she sees Dedich supporting her in the stands.
“This is one of my old water polo coaches, so I was really surprised to see him,” she says during the video.
“Then I walk a little further and that’s when I see it.”
Kearns was surprised to see her boyfriend Justin Dedich in the stands before her game.
Dedich traveled to Paris when she heard Kearns was playing for a gold medal.
Kearns then went on to explain how her boyfriend made the trip a reality.
“It turns out that when we won our semifinal to get into the gold medal game, he went up to his head coach, very forward of him, and basically said, ‘Tell me if I’m out of line, but can I go? ‘” she said.
“And the coach said, ‘Yeah, man, what are you still doing here? Get out. ‘ And that night he got on a plane and flew away.”
Dedich’s whirlwind trip to Paris lasted less than 24 hours, and then he flew back home.
“I didn’t even get to see him after the game because he ran to the airport and took the 11-hour flight back to the United States to attend his first NFL game,” Kearns said.
‘Which, by the way, killed him.’
Kearns explained that her boyfriend immediately got back on a plane to the United States after the game.
Kearns was born with elite sport running through his veins.
Her father, soccer star Phil Kearns, played during the Wallabies’ most successful era in the 1990s, while her mother Julie introduced her to the Olympics two weeks before giving birth.
“My parents went to the Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony and I was in my mother’s womb and was born the day after the Closing Ceremony,” Kearns said.
Tilly and her Aussie Stingers teammates claimed silver in Paris.
The Stingers finished fifth at Kearns’ first Olympics in Tokyo, a result she called disappointing for multiple reasons.