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Home / Sport / Olympics

You're not on kiss cam! British rider seals silver with kiss from Wales rugby winger

Daily Mail
14 Aug, 2016 11:15 PM3 mins to read

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Rebecca James of Great Britain celebrates winning the silver medal with a kiss from Welsh rugby winger George North. Photo / Getty

Rebecca James of Great Britain celebrates winning the silver medal with a kiss from Welsh rugby winger George North. Photo / Getty

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This is the moment no one in the velodrome knew where to look as Team GB's silver medallist Becky James goes in for a passionate kiss with her rugby star boyfriend George North.

The 24-year-old cyclist claimed silver in the women's keirin final at the Rio Olympics on Saturday.

After the race she was pictured running over to Welsh international North, also 24, before they shared a tender embrace, including a racy kiss.

North took a firm grip of his girlfriend's back, pulled her in and went in for a smooch, in front of the crowd at the Olympic Velodrome.

The rugby union player tweeted: "Words can't describe how proud I am! Everything she's been through. What an absolute hero."

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The couple have been through tough times over the years, after James had a close scare with cancer.

The 24-year-old, from Abergavenny in Wales, had her world rocked two years ago when she was confronted with the word 'cancer'.

Suddenly James did not feel like a two-time world champion worried about the knee injury which ruled her out of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

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A smear test in May that year, a routine procedure every three years for women aged 25 to 49 which aims to detect cells that might develop into cervical cancer, had revealed abnormal results, but James had been confident there was little to worry about.

It was only when she visited hospital a month later and was told her results were 'severe' that panic set in. She had two surgical procedures and, four 'stressful' weeks later, she received her results - 'CIN3, the highest grade of all of them' - and had a minor operation to cut away the abnormal cells.

"The doctor said to me if I had waited another year it could have been completely different," James told the Daily Mail in 2014.

"It makes you think about things in a very different way.

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"I realised how important your health is over everything else. I spoke to one of my friends before I was racing in Germany and I said, 'My form's not very good'.

"She said, 'Good health, or good form, Becky?' It's true. It does make you think.

"When the nurse drew that scale I came out of hospital in complete shock and I found the time waiting for my results really, really stressful.

"You read about stuff on the internet - you know you shouldn't look it up, but of course you do - and you lose sleep over it. It has been a really hard few months."

James did not have cervical cancer but, if left alone, those abnormal cells could have developed into something much more serious.

Despite going through what she describes as her 'deepest darkest time' she refused to give up on her Olympic dream.

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"Obviously my knee injury and cancer scare was a really bad time for me and it went on for a long time,' she told Wales Online earlier this year.

"After I got a few races under my belt I started to feel like a bike rider again but I still didn't feel like I was at the top of my game. It's taken until now to have that belief and feel like I'm at a high level of racing again.

When asked what it's like being a sports star and going out with another, she said: "He's probably a little bit more competitive than I am and he doesn't like losing."

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