For Axel

I'm taking on this IRONMAN 70.3 in memory of my friend Axel, who passed away at 22 from a rare and aggressive cancer. It was only a year from his diagnosis to the day he was gone. A disease that, as his family described it, works quietly in the shadows, where the odds are unforgiving, and the treatments still aren't enough.

Axel fought his illness with a quiet determination that stayed with him to the very end, and that's what I want to honor. On the days the training gets hard, and I want to stop, I think of how he kept going through something far harder than anything I'll face on a course. This race is my way of carrying a little of his fight with me and refusing to quit, the way he never did.

If his story stays with you the way it stays with me, I'd be grateful for any support toward cancer research in his memory. No family should have to feel this powerless.

For Axel. For every life.

Axel's story: https://cancerochallergifonden.se/2026/03/12/for-varje-liv-berattelsen-om-axel/