Two-time Olympic taekwondo silver medalist Alexandros Nikolaidis has died, age 42

Greece’s two-time Olympics taekwondo silver medalist Alexandros Nikolaidis died today at age 42, after a two-year battle with cancer.

Nikolaidis won his first silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and the second at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

On 24. March 2008, he had the honour of being chosen as the first torch-bearer of the Olympic Flame for the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay.

On 11 April, 2008, he won the European Championship in Rome.

The same year, he was named Greek Male Athlete of the year.

He carried the flag for Greece during the Parade of Nations at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

A very rare form of cancer, NUT carcinoma

Nikolaidis for two years battled a very rare form of cancer known as NUT carcinoma (NC), which usually affects the head, neck, and lungs. The median survival time from diagnosis is six to seven months, so in that sense he again beat the odds in his final challenge.

Nikolaidis had also served as alternate spokesman for the current main opposition SYRIZA, and party leader Alexis Tsipras issued a condolence statement today.

“Today, a distinguished man has left us. In his brief life, he managed to do more and achieve more significant accomplishments than each of us,” Tsipras wrote.

“He raised the Greek flag high in the Olympics, but he raised even higher the beautiful ideals of justice and solidarity in the struggles of life. Godspeed Alexandros.”

Heart-wrenching Facebook post

A heart-wrenching post that he had prepared about his life, his accomplishments, his battle with cancer, and his young children was posted on his Facebook wall today.

The post reads as follows:

“I’ll begin with a cliché. If you are reading this post, I most likely have left for a better place or nothingness. For two years, I was tortured by cancer, a rare cancer, NUT carcinoma. It is so rare that nine out of 10 doctors who read about it will have heard of it for the first time, and will hasten to search for it.”

“Fortunately, my doctor, the awesome Yannis Boukovinas, took me by the hand on the most difficult journey of my life. He was aware of this type of cancer and did everything humanly possible to save me, or to grant me a slightly longer lease on life. He moved heaven and earth to bring medications, literally from the other side of the planet, for me to try.”

“I never said ‘Why me?’”

“For two years, I never said, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ There is no more egotistical thought than that. It will happen to someone: to the person next to us, to our neighbour, to our fellow human being – and now it happens to many people.”

“If I were to attach a sign or evaluate my fortune in life, even now I would say that I was lucky. I had the blessing of making my dreams reality, of stepping up to the medalist’s pedestal in competitions a number of times, of exalting athletics and my country, of meeting people from all around the world, of learning respect and good sportsmanship – values that are so important, and of trying to implement them in my life.”

“I had the good fortune to be loved by the most beautiful woman in the world, my gift from God as her name says, and to have a beautiful family. Hence, even in this misfortune that fell upon me, I said thank you that if this had to befall my family it did not happen to her or my children. I had to climb this mountain and not them.”

“In this difficult journey, I was lucky because I was accompanied by the solidarity and care of so many people that I often wondered what I did to deserve all that they selflessly offered me. Firstly my [oncologist] doctor Mr. [Ioannis] Boukovinas, [Athens University] (Medical School professor of oncology and) Rector Mr. [Thanos] Dimopoulos, who helped so much in the first phase of my disease and later to receive every therapy as soon as possible, my thoracic surgeon Mr. [Kosmas] Iliadis who is an exceptional doctor who like a father embraced me during my very difficult lung operation, my neurosurgeon Mr. [Dimitris] Peios who eased my horrific pain, and many others, from healthcare workers to gurney-bearers. Each one offered me their love and that love gave me strength.”

Thanks to SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras for ‘brotherly care’

“Finally, I want to refer to a human being, with the deepest sense of the word, Alexis Tsispras, who came into my life very recently and offered me his friendship, thoughtfulness, and brotherly interest and care, as if he had always known me. He proved to me that all that he and the Left represent are a true stance toward life. He supported me morally and practically and he, too, did everything humanly possible for me to have the best care.”

“I want to say something to each one of you. You succeeded. You kept me alive longer than the survival rate for this very aggressive cancer. You granted me the gold medal of an extension of my life at a very critical moment, when my daughter Eleanna was just three-and-a-half years old and would have not remembered me at all, whereas now she is five-and-a-half. She will remember me, albeit as a distant remembrance, and she will be able to tell stories to her younger brother George, so that they can keep me alive in their hearts forever.”

“My friends, in this life we are all passers-by. The imprint we leave behind is more important than how or when we leave. Hence, if I am the first recorded patient with NUT carcinoma in our country, let me be the cause for the informing of our doctors and patients regarding this form of cancer, which when diagnosed in a timely manner, lives may be saved.”

‘Let me be the cause for bolstering the National Health System’

“Let me the cause for bolstering in a substantial manner our National Health System [ESY, State Hospitals], which was so debased over the last years. Patients should not be lining up in queues for a CT scan, for chemotherapy, for surgery, losing valuable time. One should put an end to the time-consuming labyrinth of bureaucracy and legal obstacles erected by the National Organisation for Medicines (EOF), when experimental drugs that can save lives must be approved immediately.”

Dying wish: auction off two Olympics medals for children’s charities

“If we come into this world for a purpose, I have decided what mine will be – to offer hope through all that I achieved in my life, from the beautiful to the unpleasant. For this reason, the time has come for my two silver Olympic Medals – from the Athens and Beijing Olympics – which I have hidden well for years, to come out and return where they belong – to universal human values. It is my dying wish that these medals be auctioned off and that the money go to facilities for children that my family will choose.”

“If even one child is saved, it will be worth every kick in the head and every broken leg [in taekwondo competitions]. This is the imprint I want to leave in society. This is the inheritance I want to leave my children,” Nikolaidis’ FB post concluded.