Olympic Marathon Swimmer Sharon Van Rouwendaal Wins Gold, Dedicates It to Her Late Dog

Olympic Gold Medalist Sharon Van Rouwendaal is as dedicated a dog mom as she is a swimmer. And when she won gold yesterday in Paris for the 10km (6.2 mile) marathon swim in the River Seine, her recently deceased pup was who she dedicated the win to.

The beloved fur baby in question is Rio, who was almost eight at the time of his passing. He was named after Rio de Janeiro, where his mom won gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. And she got his paw print (now famously) tattooed on her wrist, which she emotionally held up after her win.

Rio needed surgery in May, but tragically didn’t survive it. In her victory speech above, she included, “My world stopped when he died and I didn’t want to swim. For a few weeks I had a lot of stress in my body and like, vomiting, lost three kilos. But then my dad said ‘you have to do it for him.’ I wanted to swim one more Olympics for him.”

Below is her post sharing the sad news.

And posting a tribute to lil’ Rio on what would have been his 8th birthday.

Here’s a throwback to the good times they had together.