The fighter: Bjoern Einar Romoeren

Bjoern Einar Romoeren, former ski jumper - One of the best 2001 - 2014 / 8 World Cup wins
Bjoern Einar Romoeren, former Ski Flying world record holder - 239 m (2005 - 2011)
Bjoern Einar Romoeren, cancer patient 2019 - 2020
Bjoern Einar Romoeren, family man and daddy 2020 - ∞

He was the face of Ski Jumping for many years: a positive guy who always made Ski Jumping seem to be a sport where all you have to do is to get on the starting bar and then enjoy flying down the hill.
Always in a good mood, joking around, always down to earth, always extremely likable.

What looked so easy, was anything but that. It was the result of hard work, discipline, courage and a huge fighting spirit.

He would have also passed off as a surfer or a poster boy for some kind of beach sports with his long hair. And that's how most people perceived him during his time as an athlete, an always positive guy. But he was always more of a hard worker and a fighter then somebody who was just about the fun. The Oslo-native often had to struggle with back problems and injuries during the course of his career and he bounced back again and again, with hard work and discipline.

These 20 seconds made Romoeren famous: The Ski Flying world record in Planica (SLO) on March 20, 2005, 239 m for eternity.

Only a few hours earlier, Romoeren had already set a world record with 234.5 m, a few minutes later he lost the record to Finland's Matti Hautamaeki, who landed at 235.5 m. Romoeren could improve that again and soared to 239 m.

The Norwegian also had some serious falls on the hills. For example in Predazzo in 2011, when he crashed off the take-off table. On a different occasion, a member of the hill crew slid into Romoeren, who sat on the starting bar, from behind with crampoons. 20 cm farther to the left or the right and the career of Bjoern Einar Romoeren would have been over. Here is a video of this incident in Pragelato

He never complained about stuff like this, it was never the way he was. And he is also not complaining now.
Romoeren accepted such situations, it never really affected him. Romoeren is a really tough guy.

This spring the 38-year-old was diagnosed with cancer. And Romoeren knows that he is fighting the fight of his life. And he is, again, not complaining. It again seems as if he handles the situation with ease. He speaks about his illness openly, also to the media, he attends events, showing the signs of the chemo-therapy.

"I will win this fight", said Romoeren, who is undergoing chemo-therapy since this May and it will take until March 2020. What he lacks is time to spend with his wife and his two children (Fred will turn 2 on Friday, Fiona is four months old), the therapy is time-consuming. And, due to the extreme physical stress he lacks the energy that he always had as a well-trained world-class athlete.

When the fight against cancer is over, he will be his old self again, for his wife and his two children in Oslo, there's no doubt about that for Bjoern Einar Romoeren.

Get well soon Bjoern Einar!