Two years ago, doctors were by the hospital bed of Dutch rower Marloes Oldenburg asking if she wanted to donate her organs in case the risky surgery they were about to perform on her didn’t go well. She had just been airlifted to a hospital with her back broken into multiple places following a nasty bicycle crash during a trip to celebrate the silver medals she had won at the world championships a week earlier. Doctors didn’t know if Oldenburg would survive, or even walk again, so rowing wasn’t really a priority at the time.
About 12 weeks later, Oldenburg was back training. And in less than a month, she will be rowing again at the Paris Olympics — still carrying the pins that were inserted under the skin of her neck, and still unable to turn her head sideways because of the surgery that saved her life and changed her perspective on sports. “It sounds a bit weird when you are 36, but I’m really happy I’m alive.
If you’ve been so close to death, you have to appreciate a lot,” she said. “My goal really changed. Beforehand, it was: ‘I need to go to the Olympics, I need to get a medal.
’ And now it’s more like: ‘I’m going to the Olympics. How cool!’" Oldenburg had to learn how to swim again before getting back in a boat, but quickly got up to speed and will arrive in France as one of the medal favorites with the Dutch team in the coxless four event. “It went really fast,” she said.
“My teammates picked me up, they supported me. After six month.