Justin Best Is Engaged! Olympic Rower Proposes to Girlfriend Lainey Duncan After Win: ‘I Got the Gold and the Girl’

Justin Best made history at the 2024 Summer Olympics when the rower helped bring home gold for Team USA for the first time in 60 years. But it’s another milestone he celebrated at the Paris Games that’s the real prize.

On Monday, Aug. 5, Best got engaged to his girlfriend of nine years, Lainey Duncan. The 26-year-old athlete from Kennett Square, Pa. popped the question live on the Today show.

“Lainey is my other half. She is fiercely intelligent, effortlessly beautiful, boundlessly creative, and radiates kindness to everyone she meets,” Best tells PEOPLE exclusively. “We have gone through everything in our adult lives together and I have seen her grow into an amazing woman and she has guided me into the man I am today. I am so happy I get to spend the rest of my life with this amazing human, and hopefully raise a family together.”

While live on the air, Best got down on one knee in front of his love.

“Lainey Olivia Duncan, you are the love of my life,” he told a surprised Duncan. “You have been with me since day one. I knew you were special since our first date when I said to you, ‘I want to go to the Olympics’ and you, without question, said, ‘Absolutely go for it.’ “

“You are stunningly beautiful, ferociously intelligent — your kindness is leaps and bounds…” he continued. “I don’t know anyone that doesn’t love you.”

Best, holding a ring in his hand, then asked Duncan what he called “the easiest question of my life.”

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you and raise a family together,” he said. “Lainey, will you marry me?”

Duncan responding with a resounding “Yes,” embracing him with a kiss after he placed the rock on her finger. “I am so, so happy,” she said. “This is the best day of my life.”

Surrounding Best and Duncan for the happy moment were members of his family, who held 2,738 yellow roses — each flower representing a day the two communicated through Snapchat over the years.

“Our love is truly now immortalized and I am so, so happy,” he said of the roses, which were provided by the social media platform.

“I got the gold and the girl, and she got the diamond,” he said.

Best popped the question with a “2.01 Ct natural G diamond in an emerald cut solitaire on a platinum setting. She always had an extraordinary stack of rings on her hands so I wanted to get her one that could support any variation of rings she has on that day,” he says. Best purchased it in December, and adds that his dad “has been kind enough to carry it in Paris for the proposal.”

When it came to planning the proposal, Best knew Paris was the perfect place.

“Paris is Lainey’s favorite city. She is a fashion designer and absolutely loves the history of the fashion empires that have been started in the city,” he tells PEOPLE. . “Her and her mother traveled here a handful of times throughout her childhood and she always loved the museums, food, shows and the city’s natural beauty. I saw the games were going to be held here, and decided this was going to be the place with the Eiffel Tower in the background.”

Best and his Team USA teammates Liam Corrigan, Michael Grady and Nick Mead on the men’s four rowing team won gold on Aug. 1.

Best told Today‘s Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin and Al Roker after he proposed that he was “just as nervous as I was lining up for the start line,.

“If I had a heart rate monitor on, I might be 130 beats per minute,” he said.

Joked Roker: “This is the starting line for the first day of the rest of your lives.”

After their win, Team USA opened up to PEOPLE about the sacrifices their partners make by dating Olympic athletes.

“All of us are in long-term relationships, and training on the road across the United States and being in a relationship is not easy,” said Mead, 29. “The brunt of that burden is borne by not us, but our girlfriends and fiancés.

“We haven’t been home in eight months and they have just been by our side that whole time,” he added. “And fielding questions with people. ‘Why isn’t your boyfriend or fiancé here at this important event?’ And they have to say, ‘Oh, he’s doing this sport that he’s been doing for 15 years that no one knows about.’ So we owe so much to [them].”

Grady went on to note how great it would be to “be there physically” and spend time with their loved ones, now that competition is over.

“We’ve literally been on the road for the last eight months. And pretty much without exception, because we have been so focused on this one singular task,” he said. “And so, more than anything, just going for a walk and a coffee in the morning is something that they’re looking forward to,”

To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. And sign up for Going for Gold, our Olympics newsletter, to get the biggest stories from the Games delivered straight to your inbox. Watch the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, beginning July 26, on NBC and Peacock.