Elite athletes are global icons the world looks up to. People love the dazzling athletic shows they put up on the pitch.
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But more than consistently serving fans the most entertaining displays on the pitch, some athletes have been beacons of motivation for those going through personal and health challenges.
This article celebrates the mental toughness of five athletes who battled and overcame cancer.
Sebastien Haller
Sebastien Haller is one of the most recent athletes who came up against cancer…and triumphed.
He was born in France to an Ivorian mother and a french father. Haller currently plays for Borrusia Dortmund and the Ivory Coast National Team.
He has played for Ajax and Eintracht Frankfurt. Haller won the DFB Pokal with Frankfurt in 2018 and two Eredivisie titles with Ajax. He’s a prolific goalscorer, and he scored 11 goals in the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League.
He was diagnosed with a testicular tumor and withdrew from the club’s pre-season training to undergo treatment in July 2022.
The treatment was successful, and he was back on the pitch seven months later, on January 10, 2023, in a friendly match. He was soon back to his scoring ways in subsequent fixtures against Basel and Augsburg.
Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong began his career as a triathlete and won multiple national championships.
He started cycling professionally with the Motorola team. Armstrong enjoyed success in his early professional cycling career before being diagnosed with cancer at age 25.
Armstrong’s form of cancer was one of the most serious; metastatic testicular cancer. However, he survived the ordeal and was soon back to his best. He won seven consecutive Tour de France titles and was an icon in the sporting world until his retirement.
However, he was stripped of all his titles after confessing to doping in 2013. Numerous anti-doping organizations accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs many times in his career, but he denies the claims every time.
Despite his career issues, Armstrong symbolizes hope for cancer patients. His strength to beat the disease and return to the sport inspired many people globally. Armstrong is the founder of the Livestrong Foundation, an NGO that helps cancer patients.
Novelene Williams-Mills
Novelene Williams-Mills was another top athlete that beat cancer. She’s a Jamaican track and field athlete and competes mainly in the 400 meters. She’s won gold medals at the World Championships and the Olympics.
Novelene was part of the silver medal-winning team of the 2005 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, in the 4 x 400 meters relay.
She won a Gold medal in the 2015 World Championship 3 x 400 meters relays in Beijing and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Unlike most other athletes on this list, she only disclosed that she had cancer after her recovery. She mentioned to journalists in 2013 that she had breast cancer before the 2012 London Olympics.
Despite her condition, she ran in the Olympics and even helped her beloved Jamaica to win a bronze medal. Novelene retired from running in 2017.
Daniel Jacobs
Daniel Jacobs was an exceptional boxer known for his boxing power. Boxing is risky, and injuries are part of the game.
However, Jacobs faced a major health condition unrelated to his boxing career; osteosarcoma, a rare form of brain cancer.
He was diagnosed with the disease in 2011. Jacobs returned to the ring one year later and knocked out Josh Luteran in the first round. In august 2013, he became the WBC Continental American middleweight champion when he knocked out Giovanni Lorenzon in the third round.
He won the WBA Middleweight Championship on August 9, 2014, when he knocked out Jarrod Fletcher.
The Ring magazine ranked Jacobs as one of the top ten active middleweight boxers in 2021. He boasts an 82.8% knockout-to-win ratio, helped by his tremendous punching power. He’s one of the few athletes to have made a successful comeback after beating cancer.
Edna Campbell
Edna Campbell is another female athlete who beat cancer to continue playing the sport she loves. She played in the WNBA for the Sacramento Monarchs and Seattle Storms, among other teams.
Edna was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, during her time with the Sacramento Monarchs.
She didn’t let the diagnosis hinder her sport and continued to play regularly, attracting praise from the sporting world. Edna was the spokesperson for the WNBA’s national cancer awareness forum. She received the 2003 Kind Perrot Sportsmanship Award.
Edna played at the WNBA for four years after the diagnosis before retiring. She became a nurse and high school coach shortly after her retirement and is a member of the Mulit-Ethics Hall of Fame.
Rounding our article up, cancer is a life-threatening disease that claims many lives annually. Sportspeople aren’t left out, and some famous athletes have battled the disease.
While some weren’t so lucky, others beat the disease and still competed at the top level in their sports. The athletes on this list are five of the many famous athletes that survived cancer.
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