Jan 26, 2024 at 10:53 PM Update: 4 hours ago
Former Olympic speed skating champion Michael Mulder (37) has a benign tumor in his head. The former skater said this in an interview with the NOS.
Mulder’s benign tumor came to light last summer, after he had been suffering from hearing loss for some time. “In noisy spaces I increasingly could not understand people. I then had to turn my head so that they talked in my left ear,” Mulder explains.
Various investigations initially provided inconclusive results, until the current skating coach received an MRI scan in August. It turned out that Mulder has a tumor behind his right ear, the size of a golf ball.
This affects Mulder’s hearing. “I have right hearing loss, now about 30 percent. It’s not too bad,” Mulder explained in the RTL program on Friday. Stars on Stage out, where he was also open about his tumor.
Michel Mulder in his time as a skater. Photo: Getty Images
Mulder becomes deaf in one ear
The tumor grows by about one millimeter per year and will eventually need to be surgically removed. Although that operation will cause Mulder’s right auditory nerve to be irreparably damaged.
This will make him deaf in that ear. “Because it is benign, I can grow old with it. Although there will be consequences in the long run,” Mulder told the newspaper. NOS.
“Mentally, shortly after the news, it was a bit difficult to do sports, for example. I no longer had the energy for that. But now I enjoy doing it again and I am actually even more aware that I have to do something that I really like.”
Mulder was crowned Olympic champion in the 1,000 meters in Sochi in 2014. He also won two silver medals at the World Championships distances and won twice gold at the World Championships sprint. Mulder is currently a performance coach at the skating team Team Novus.
2024-01-26 21:53:16
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