Picture this: You’re 16, standing trackside at the London 2012 Olympics as a kit carrier, watching Jessica Ennis-Hill claim heptathlon gold. The crowd’s roar washes over you, and suddenly you know – this is your future. Fast-forward to 2024, and you’re standing on an Olympic podium in Paris, bronze medal around your neck. Pretty standard sports fairytale, right?
Except Lina Nielsen’s story comes with a twist that would make even Hollywood screenwriters pause. For nine years – nine entire years – she carried a secret that could have derailed everything. At 17, just as her athletics career was taking flight, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And she told almost nobody.
“I split myself into multiple parts,” Nielsen recalls of those early years. “The person with MS, the athlete, the sister. I didn’t want to be known as ‘the girl with MS’ at school.”
It’s a revelation that reframes everything about her journey from promising junior to Olympic medalist. This isn’t just another story of athletic triumph – it’s about the weight of invisible battles, the courage of vulnerability, and how sometimes our biggest obstacles become our greatest strengths.
Lina Nielsen: The Girl Who Ran in Shadows
The story begins, as many great athletic tales do, with a moment of pure inspiration. Picture the Nielsen twins – Lina and Laviai – both 16, both wide-eyed, both carrying kit at the biggest sporting spectacle on Earth. The 2012 Olympics in London wasn’t just a job for them; it was a revelation.
“It was so special,” Lina remembers. That day, watching elite athletes perform at the pinnacle of their sport, planted a seed that would grow into an Olympic dream. But here’s where the plot thickens: just one year later, at 13, Lina started experiencing what she calls “weird symptoms.”
Her left arm would go numb. Strange sensations coursed through her body. When she went to doctors, some actually accused her of faking illness to skip school. Imagine being a teenager, knowing something’s wrong with your body, and having adults dismiss your reality. It’s the kind of invalidation that can shatter confidence – or forge unbreakable determination.
By 17, the diagnosis was official: Multiple Sclerosis. A chronic neurological condition that can cause fatigue, numbness, vision problems, and in severe cases, paralysis. For a budding athlete whose body was literally her livelihood, it felt like a death sentence.
“I thought my athletics dreams were over,” she admits. The textbook images didn’t help – they typically showed “an older man in a wheelchair.” She was terrified of ending up disabled, of having her life “completely change.” So she made a choice that would define the next decade: she would tell almost no one, and she would keep running.
The Art of Athletic Compartmentalization
What does it look like to live a double life? For Lina, it meant becoming a master of compartmentalization. She was studying chemistry at Queen Mary University of London, pursuing her athletics career, and simultaneously managing a chronic illness that could flare up without warning. All while maintaining the facade that everything was normal.
The strategic pivot to 400m hurdles happened during this period. Initially a middle-distance runner, Lina switched to the 400m in 2013, then specialized further into hurdles. It wasn’t just about finding her best event – it was about finding where she could excel despite her condition. British record-holder Sally Gunnell had spotted a “big gap” in the hurdles field compared to the crowded 400m flat. Sometimes the best opportunities hide in the spaces others avoid.
But MS doesn’t care about your training schedule. In 2017, Lina experienced what she calls her worst relapse. She lost movement in her right leg and arm, essentially paralyzed down the right side of her body. This wasn’t just a bad training day – this was her worst fear manifested.
Enter Laviai, the twin sister who would become her lifeline. Every day, Laviai helped Lina with basic tasks: walking, brushing teeth, brushing hair. The woman who would later become an international 400m athlete herself was literally helping her sister learn to move again.
“I was determined to continue with life the way it was,” Lina says of that period. It’s a statement that reveals everything about her character. Not “get back to normal,” but continue as if nothing had changed. The refusal to let MS redefine her reality was both her survival mechanism and her superpower.
The Breaking Point
For years, Lina had been living what felt like multiple lives. Publicly, she was Lina Nielsen, rising track star. Privately, she was a young woman managing a chronic illness, dealing with unpredictable relapses, carefully monitoring her body for signs of fatigue or numbness.
The secret-keeping took its toll. She describes how she “hated” being pitied by the few people she told. The weight of constantly performing wellness, of never being able to fully explain why she might need extra rest or why certain training days were harder than others, was exhausting.
But champions are forged in pressure, and Lina’s breakthrough was coming. In 2021, she won gold in the 400m hurdles at the European Team Championships. By 2024, she was running personal bests and making Team GB for Paris. The athlete was thriving, but the secret was becoming unsustainable.
Then came August 2022, and the moment that changed everything. Two days before her World Athletics Championships heats in Oregon, Lina experienced a relapse. Her times were significantly slower than her personal best, but she had a choice: compete and potentially expose her condition, or withdraw and continue living in the shadows.
She chose to run. And afterward, in what she describes as an unplanned moment, she went public with her MS diagnosis.
The Liberation of Truth
The response was overwhelming – and overwhelmingly positive. “I didn’t expect such a really positive response,” Lina Nielsen admits. Her direct messages flooded with notes from newly diagnosed individuals who found hope in her story. Fellow athletes like Dutch 400m specialist Femke Bol expressed pride and solidarity.
But perhaps more importantly, something shifted inside Lina Nielsen herself. The psychological burden of secrecy was lifted. She could finally stop compartmentalizing her life, stop pretending that her physical struggles didn’t exist.
“My sports psych asked me how I would define success this weekend and I replied, ‘Actually running!'” she said after achieving her first global medal. It’s a statement that perfectly captures her evolved relationship with competition. Success wasn’t just about times and medals anymore – it was about the profound privilege of being able to compete at all.
The transformation was almost immediate. At the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, she earned bronze in the 4x400m relay – her first global medal. At the European Championships in Rome, she ran a personal best of 54.43 in the 400m hurdles semi-finals. And then came Paris.
Paris 2024: The Payoff
The 2024 Olympics were supposed to be Lina’s moment. She’d qualified, she was in the best form of her life, and for the first time, she was competing without the weight of her secret. But sport has its own cruel sense of timing – she fell in her 400m hurdles semi-final.
In the old paradigm, this might have been devastating. But Lina had already redefined success. She ran in the 4x400m relay heat, helping Team GB qualify for the final. The team’s subsequent bronze medal meant Lina Nielsen – the girl who once thought MS would end her athletics dreams – was now an Olympic medalist.
The medal ceremony footage shows a woman who looks genuinely surprised by her own joy. After years of running in the shadows, she was finally standing in the light.
Lina Nielsen: The Advocacy Champion
Going public transformed Lina from athlete to advocate. She now leads the “MS without Barriers” campaign in partnership with Sanofi, working to dispel misconceptions about the condition. She’s created a three-part documentary with Sky Sports and maintains an active social media presence with her sister.
The Nielsen twins have become powerful voices for chronic illness awareness, showing that diagnosis doesn’t mean limitation. They’re working on a cookbook focused on nutrition for chronic illness and athletic performance, and their joint YouTube channel documents their journey with refreshing honesty.
But perhaps most importantly, Lina Nielsen has become living proof that our perceived limitations often say more about our imagination than our capabilities.
The Science of Resilience
What makes Lina Nielsen’s story particularly fascinating is how she’s turned MS management into a competitive advantage. She’s a qualified yoga teacher who integrates mindfulness into her training. She follows strict nutritional protocols and has learned to read her body’s signals with extraordinary precision.
“I’ve always believed in the power of movement,” Lina Nielsen says. During relapses, when every instinct might say to rest, she keeps moving in some capacity, believing that complete stillness prolongs recovery. It’s an approach that requires incredible body awareness and mental fortitude.
Her training philosophy has evolved too. She views relapses like other athletes view injuries – setbacks that require management, not career-ending disasters. This mindset shift, from victim to strategist, has been crucial to her success.
Breaking Records and Barriers
The story doesn’t end with Paris. In February 2025, Lina Nielsen broke the British women’s indoor 300m record with a time of 36.53 seconds. At the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, she added silver in the 4x400m relay and bronze in the mixed relay to her growing medal collection.
She’s been named Team Captain for Great Britain & Northern Ireland, delivering motivational speeches that incorporate breathing exercises from her yoga practice. The girl who once split herself into “multiple parts” is now helping unite entire teams.
The Twin Factor
Throughout this journey, Laviai has been more than a sister – she’s been a partner in resilience. When Laviai received her own MS diagnosis in 2021, Lina initially felt “guilt” about the genetic component of the condition. But their shared experience has created an extraordinarily powerful support system.
They understand each other’s struggles in ways that go beyond typical sibling bonds. Their joint advocacy work carries the authenticity that only comes from lived experience. When they speak about MS, they’re not offering platitudes – they’re sharing survival strategies.
The Bigger Picture
Lina Nielsen’s story arrives at a crucial moment in sports culture. As conversations around mental health and chronic illness become more mainstream, her journey offers a blueprint for how athletes can thrive while managing invisible conditions.
Her advocacy work extends beyond athletics into broader social impact. As an Ambassador for Right To Play, she’s using sport to educate children in disadvantaged communities, embodying her belief in movement’s transformative power.
The ripple effects of her openness continue expanding. Young athletes with chronic conditions now have a role model who proves that diagnosis doesn’t equal limitation. Parents of newly diagnosed children have hope. The entire conversation around chronic illness in elite sport has shifted.
The Final Sprint
What’s most striking about Lina Nielsen’s story isn’t just her athletic achievements – though breaking British records and winning Olympic medals while managing MS is undeniably remarkable. It’s her evolution from someone who felt she needed to hide essential parts of herself to someone who’s made authenticity her superpower.
The girl who once “split herself into multiple parts” has become whole. The secret she carried for nine years has become the foundation of her advocacy. The condition she feared would end her dreams has become part of what makes her inspiring.
Today, when young athletes ask about managing chronic illness, or when newly diagnosed individuals wonder if they can still pursue their passions, they have Lina Nielsen’s story as proof that the answer is yes. Not just yes, you can survive – but yes, you can thrive.
In a sport obsessed with times and distances, Lina has redefined what it means to be fast. Sometimes the most impressive speed isn’t measured in seconds – it’s measured in how quickly you can transform your greatest challenge into your greatest strength.
The secret runner is secret no more. And the world is better for it.
Lina Nielsen isn’t the only athlete proving that medical challenges can’t stop Olympic dreams. German pole vaulter Katharina Bauer’s story shares striking parallels – from a life-threatening heart condition requiring an implanted defibrillator to competing at World Championships in Doha. Her journey of literally vaulting over heart hurdles offers another powerful testament to athletic resilience. Read her incredible story: Katharina Bauer: Vaulting Over Heart Hurdles.
Photo: Por Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0,
