The Olympic sweetheart is flying high after a proposal she will never forget, writes LUCY CHESTERTON.

The golden curls and sweet smile are just the same, but there’s something new about Olympic sweetheart Nikki Webster – a sparkling engagement ring. Smiling lovingly at her fiancé Matthew McMah as the couple sits down for an exclusive chat with Woman’s Day, it’s clear the next chapter of Nikki’s life is set to be a beautiful love story.

“I can’t wait for the rest of our lives together,” she smiles.

Nikki, 23, and Matt, 31, met on a blind date on Australia Day last year, and while Matt doesn’t believe in love at first sight, he told Nikki he would call her the next day – then set his alarm for 8am to make sure he kept his promise.

It was a solid start to a romance that would see the couple gradually fall in love over rounds of putt-putt golf, cooking and movie dates. Matt took the plunge and proposed to Nikki on a romantic trip to Fiji in January this year.

“I had no idea!” Nikki giggles. “I thought Matt had booked the trip because it was our one year anniversary!” Instead, enterprising Matt had secretly brought Nikki’s engagement ring from Australia and hidden it behind a false wall in their shared safe at the resort. Then, sneaking it into his pocket, he nervously went to dinner with Nikki.

“I had my hand in my pocket all night and Nikki kept asking why,” Matt says. “I told her I was just scratching my leg.”

On the way back from dinner, the pair stumbled across a lone hammock in the dark and Matt knew the moment had arrived. “We were on the hammock when Matt got down on one knee and I said, ‘Seriously?’, thinking he was just mucking around,” Nikki remembers. “It was pitch black so I couldn’t see he was holding a ring!”

Only when Matt lit up the small box with light from his iPhone did Nikki realise he was definitely serious – but at that moment the skies opened and fierce tropical rains began beating down on the couple.

“It was raining and raining,” Nikki says, “And over the noise Matt was yelling, ‘You have got to answer me’.”

“I said, ‘Yes!’ and we started running. I didn’t even look at the ring – we just kept running back.

“It wasn’t until we stopped we suddenly thought, ‘Did this just happen?’.”

With a few days left on their idyllic island, Nikki wanted to ring home immediately with the happy news but Matt had already beaten her to it. He’d asked her parents’ permission before proposing. “They said, ‘We were wondering when he was going to do it’,” Nikki grins.

Now both families – in particular, Nikki’s older brother Scott, and Matt’s sister Jen, who set the pair up on the original date – are excitedly planning for the nuptials, likely to be held next year.

“I thought Nikki was stunning as soon as I saw her,” Matt remembers. “The more time I spent with her, the more time I wanted to spend with her and I knew within the first couple of weeks that this was it for me.”

Matt, who works for an airline, wasn’t familiar with Nikki’s special role in Australian sporting history or her success as a businesswoman. In fact, he had to Google her after fans kept approaching her in the street.

“I knew very little about Nikki’s career because at the time of the Olympics, I was living in Europe,” he explains. “I knew Nikki was a celebrity. I knew she was in the public eye. I knew what she had done, but I actually had to go home and look her up online the night we met to see it for myself.”

While Matt didn’t know much of Nikki’s history, he was certain of one thing – he had found “the one”.

“It is great that Nikki is the person she is,” Matt says. “If I have ever had any questions or there was something I wasn’t sure about or that upset me, I know I can always talk to her because she is so transparent with me. We don’t hide anything from each other.”

And Nikki agrees she has finally met her perfect match.

“I am very guarded, but there was something about Matt that wouldn’t allow me to do that and I didn’t want to do that, as well,” she says.

“For me, it is someone I can laugh with and have fun with and who makes me feel on top of the world.”

Source: Woman’s Day
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