MY STORY

As a young boy, I spend all my free time outdoors doing all kinds of sports. On a Monday in June 1999, together with the rest of the young sailors in my club, I was practicing what to do, in case my dinghy was capsized. We turned them over, one by one, and plumped in the water… unfortunately the instructor came a little too close to me, when I was under, and my leg got caught in the propeller of his boat. And so, at 11 years old I lost my leg… well, half of it anyway, in a boating accident.

One month later, I’m “officially” a lower-limb amputee and received my very first test-prostheses. Even then, at just 11 years old, I was determined to not be limited by my situation and focused on the good instead of the bad. Yes, I’d lost part of my leg, but I still had my life… and I was going to live it to the fullest!

Since that summer day in 1999, I’ve climbed both the Kilimanjaro and Rinjani, completed an Ironman, done more than 35 triathlons -13 of which has been ITU- and finished 2nd in the European Championship in Valencia and 3rd in the World Cup in Australia 2019… oh, and perhaps most important of all: I was back in a dinghy on the water just months after the accident.

Since moving to Dubai in 2018 with my wife Pia, I have focused all my time and energy on qualifying for the Tokyo Paralympics and am now a full-time Para-triathlete. “The most recognizable athlete in town”! The Paralympics were supposed to have been in 2020, but like so many other amazing events, the Paralympics have been postponed to 2021 due to Covid-19.

In December 2019 we welcomed a beautiful baby-girl to the world, and the title as dad immediately rose to the top of my list of achievements. Not a day has gone by since, where she hasn’t been my number one reason for chasing my dreams even more than before.