Niklas Bøyesen Lohne Hansen was five years old when his body began to fail him. Doctors in Norway eventually reached a diagnosis fewer than 150 people on Earth share: Rasmussen’s encephalitis, a rare neurological disease that slowly devours one hemisphere of the brain.

To stop it, surgeons performed a drastic operation that disconnected the entire left hemisphere of his brain. Niklas, as he says it, lives “with half a brain.” The disease left him paralysed down his right side: right leg, right arm, the right side of his face. He walks with a limp. Doctors weren’t sure he would ever walk or talk.

Then he strapped into a snowboard. With the board locked to his feet, the limp disappears, and Niklas is fast enough to beat riders who have no disability at all.

At thirteen he was called up to the Norwegian national para snowboard team. Since then he has collected six Norwegian Championship golds and a Europa Cup victory, racing Snowboard Cross and Banked Slalom across the World Cup circuit.

In 2026 he reaches the summit of his sport: his first Paralympic Games, in Milano Cortina, against every limit the world once set for him.

“Everything is possible with the right attitude.”