:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Caeleb-Dressel-olympic-parents-073024-be01ed668c424caab30c2151e43e2391.jpg)
Olympians are used to pulling off incredible feats of endurance, pushing past their own limits of exhaustion and overwhelming mental blocks to persevere in competition. So no one is better equipped to face down an all-nighter with an infant, or a daunting diaper change.
Parenthood at the Olympics has been more a part of the conversation than ever, especially since Allyson Felix worked with Pampers to create the first-ever nursery in the Athletes’ Village for the 2024 Paris Olympic games to provide free childcare to Olympians who traveled with their children to the games.
And it was all worth it to see these Olympic medalists celebrating the peak of their athletic careers alongside their children. Check out some of the most heartwarming, emotional moments of Olympic parents sharing their medal moment with their kids.
Clarisse Agbegnenou: Judo
LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty
Clarisse Agbegnenou tearfully took home the bronze for France with baby Athéna in her arms.
“I want women athletes who follow me to feel free and legitimate, to break codes to change mentalities and change the rules. We can have a life as a woman and mother as well as champion at the same time,” she told Le Parisien, per The Guardian.
Abegnenou was also one of the biggest proponents for accommodations for breastfeeding moms leading up to the Games, and her advocacy led the Paris Olympics committee to provide hotel rooms near the venues for athletes to use to feed or pump.
Caeleb Dressel: Swimming
Quinn Rooney/Getty
Caeleb Dressel (designated a “proud papa” by Beyoncé, the world’s highest honor) welcomed August with his wife Meghan in February 2024, and though the baby slept through most of his dad’s electrifying 4×100 relay win, he woke up in time to get an emotional hug from his parents.
“My son getting to watch me win a gold medal is everything,” Dressel told NBC reporters.
Adam Peaty: Swimming
Clive Rose/Getty
Adam Peaty lost out on the gold by fractions of a second in his 100M freestyle race, but he said that seeing son George, 3, in the stands, helped him move on from his defeat, according to The Daily Mail.
“He normally goes, ‘Daddy, are you the fastest boy?’ and I would have said, ‘Not today.’ But he just said, ‘I love you Daddy,’ and that’s all I care about,” he said, according to the publication. ‘When I hugged George, as soon as I saw his curly hair, I was gone, I was crying. I feel like I’ve been stung by a bee because I feel so swollen in my face because I’ve been crying so much.”
Victor Koretzky: Cross-Country Mountain Bike
Jared C. Tilton/Getty
Victor Koretzky, cycling for France, also missed the top of the podium by a narrow margin, but his silver was made sweeter by getting to celebrate it with his family, including wife Lea and their son.
Paulin Riva: Rugby
Hannah Peters/Getty
A member of France’s gold-winning rugby sevens team shows off the pitch to, perhaps, a future member of France’s women’s rugby team in 2044?
Auriane Mallo-Breton: Fencing
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty
Little Mathis admires his mom Auriane Mallo-Breton’s silver medal for France, from the epée individual competition.
Tom Daley: Diving
Clive Rose/Getty
Tom Daley’s children Robbie and Phoenix cheered for their dad (while wearing shirts with his face on them) as he took home his fifth Olympic medal in diving. “Them getting to see him dive today was so special already,” husband Dustin Lance-Black said. “And the fact that he just won the one medal he’s never won before … It’s very moving for family because we see the hard work and dedication that goes into making it look effortless and it’s what he and [diving partner Noah Williams] did today. So we’re so proud.”