"Don't call me Lance"

[alpinerabbit]

"I'm no Lance Armstrong, don't call me Lance Armstrong," insisted Holland's Olympic swimming champion Maarten van der Weijden, who won an epic battle with Great Britain's David Davies in the men's 10k Open Water event this morning.

He also won an even more brutal fight with cancer eight years ago and was forced to take two years out from 2001 to win his fight against the disease.

"Armstrong says that positive thinking and doing a lot of sports can save you. I don't agree," said van der Weijden. "I even think it's dangerous because it implies that if you are not a positive thinker all the time you lose.

The doctors - and not just the power of positive thinking and my love of sport - have saved me. I am just lucky that the chemotherapy saved me. That's how simple it is."

p.s. there have been studies showing that the attitude of the cancer patient has little influence on prognosis.