70 Asser youngsters race and run up the Alpe d’Huez several times to raise money for cancer. ‘When you break down, you just think about the person who is sick’

Samarijn tells with a lump in his throat. “That was very difficult. We weren’t expecting it at all. We always thought: it won’t be. She then had a lot of tests, which was a tough period.”

But her story has a happy ending † Samarijn’s mother was treated and is cured. She will be without a thyroid for the rest of her life, for which she has to take medication. “I wish that outcome for everyone. That is why I participate in this.”

Up six times

The sporting challenge on the French cycling mountain in the Alps takes place every year on the first Thursday of June. The mountain is then deposited by a Dutch organization and renamed Alpe d’huZes † Five thousand participants participate and choose whether they run, walk or cycle up the mountain. The route – almost 14 kilometers long and more than a kilometer uphill – will be completed six times by the participants. The sporting challenge symbolizes the difficult path that cancer patients have to take: you experience what it is like to break down, while giving up is not an option.