{"id":292386,"date":"2026-02-11T12:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292386\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:54:10","slug":"olympian-wins-bronze-then-confesses-to-affair-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292386\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympian wins bronze then confesses to affair on TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Norway&#8217;s Sturla Holm Laegreid followed up his bronze medal in the biathlon at the Winter Olympics with a stunning confession that he had cheated on his girlfriend, before openly begging her for another chance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I realised that this is the woman in my life, and I can&#8217;t live my whole life keeping it a secret from her. My only way to solve it is to tell everything and put everything on the table, and hope that she can still love me,&#8221; Laegreid told Norwegian newspaper VG.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve done that for her, and now for the whole world. I have nothing to lose.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The biathlete made his revelation to the Norwegian state broadcaster after taking the bronze in a race won by his compatriot Johan-Olav Botn, with Eric Perrot of France coming in second.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s someone I wanted to share it with who might not be watching today. Six months ago I met the love of my life &#8211; the most beautiful and kindest person in the world,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Three months ago I made my biggest mistake and cheated on her,&#8221; he added tearfully. &#8220;I told her about it a week ago. It&#8217;s been the worst week of my life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Without naming the woman, 28-year-old Laegreid compared her to the Games&#8217; most prestigious prize.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had a \u2060gold medal in my life, and there are probably many who look at me with different eyes, but I only have eyes for her,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Sport has taken a slightly different \u2060place (in my life) the last few days. Yes, I wish I could share it with her.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sturla Holm Laegreid of Team Norway poses for a picture during the medal ceremony \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023e04d-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nSturla Holm Laegreid of Team Norway poses for a picture during the medal ceremony<\/p>\n<p>Later, Laegreid explained that he had been feeling very emotional after the race, which came in the wake \u2060of the death of teammate \u2060Sivert Guttorm Bakken in December.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, now I hope I didn&#8217;t ruin Johan&#8217;s day,&#8221; he said of the gold medal winner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Maybe it was really selfish of me to give that interview. So yeah, I don&#8217;t know. I was, I&#8217;m a bit, I don&#8217;t know &#8230; I&#8217;m not really here mentally. So \u2060yeah, we will see what happens,&#8221; he told reporters about an hour after the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Watch: Olympian &#8216;made choice to tell world&#8217; he cheated on partner<\/p>\n<p alt=\"Olympian 'made choice to tell world' he cheated on partner\" data-embed=\"comcast-player\" data-guid=\"epic-mpx-manual-30692\" data-id=\"CaMf9Jso3Gxe\">\n<p>Speaking to VG later on &#8211; after his confession became one of the day&#8217;s big talking points at the Olympics &#8211; Laegreid doubled down, begging his girlfriend again for a second chance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I told her a week ago, and then it ended, of course. I&#8217;m not ready to give up&#8230; I&#8217;m taking the consequences for what I&#8217;ve done, I regret it with all my heart,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to be a good role model, but I have to admit when I make mistakes. You have to admit when you do something you can&#8217;t stand behind, and \u2060when you hurt someone you love so much.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway&#8217;s Sturla Holm Laegreid followed up his bronze medal in the biathlon at the Winter Olympics with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-292386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}