An Olympic Gold Metal Winner With Cancer: "Don't Call Me Lance Armstrong!”
Dutch Olympic Gold Metal Winner van der Weijden rejected a popular, but unscientific view of the role that a positive psychological attitude has in surviving cancer.
Maarten van der Weijden (Wikipedia)
A story making the rounds in the Dutch press in 2008 about Dutch Olympic swimming champion Maarten van der Weijden seemed to fit well with the ideas that I was struggling to articulate about the harmfulnees of beliefs that a positive attitude could extend the survival of persons with cancer.
After being treated for leukaemia in 2001 at age 19, van der Weijden re-entered the Open Water World Championships two years later. In 2008, he won the 10km open water marathon at the Olympics in Beijin.
Maarten van der Weijden’s non-herioc narrative about his bout with cancer invited comparison with Lance Armstrong’s boasting that he survived cancer because he approached the disease like training for a cycling competition. This was when I still admired Lance Armstrong's courage and generosity, even if I had growing doubts that he fairly won bicycle races. Without looking closely into what he did in cycling competitions, Armstrong posed a bigger than life cu…