The news of the death of the Olympic taekwondo champion and deputy press representative of SYRIZA, Alexandros Nikolaidis, has shocked Greece.

Alexandros Nikolaidis fought for two years with an extremely rare form of cancer.

In his Facebook post, he writes about the hard battle he fought with this rare form of cancer. He talks about his family, his career as an athlete, and politics.

“I suffered with cancer too”, but as he says “for two years I never said ‘Why me?”

The great athlete who left at the age of 43, referring to his wife and children says “I was lucky enough to be loved by the most wonderful woman in the world, my gift from God, as her name is, and we have a beautiful family. So even in this misfortune that found me, I said thank you, that if this was meant to come to my family, it did not find her or my children. I had to climb this mountain, I had to carry this burden. Not them.”

“I’ll start with this cliché, for you to be reading this post of mine right now, I’ve probably left for somewhere better or nowhere.

For two years, I also suffered from cancer. With such a rare type of cancer, nut carcinoma, that currently nine out of ten Greek doctors who read it, are hearing it for the first time and will rush to look it up. Fortunately, my own doctor, the wonderful Yannis Bukovinas who took me by the hand on the most difficult journey of my life, knew this rare guy and did everything to save me or give me a little more life. He moved heaven and earth, to bring medicines literally from the other side of the earth for me to try.”