Years of battle

Cancer had eaten away his brain: Olympic hero dead!

Robert Dill-Bundi during his historic victory in Moscow in 1980 ...

(Bild: ANONYMOUS / Keystone / picturedesk.com)

"There's always another day, life is always worth living, the fight is worth it!" Fate had thrown many blows at his feet, but he never let it get to him and instead enjoyed his life in line with his optimistic credo - but now Robert Dill-Bundi has died!

The only Swiss cyclist ever to win Olympic gold in track cycling succumbed at the age of 65 to the brain tumor disease that had plagued him for many years and cost him around 30 percent of his brain mass ...

Historic pursuit victory at the 1980 Olympic Games
In sporting terms, Dill-Bundi was a very special personality for Switzerland: through his historic pursuit victory at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Never before and never since had a Swiss athlete achieved such a coup. Away from the Olympic stage, Dill-Bundi also struck on the road, winning a stage of the Giro d'Italia in 1982 and the prologue of the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland in 1983. In 1984, he won the Keirin World Championship title once again before winding down his career until 1988.

"Sauhund", as Dill-Bundi called the cancer, returned
Since 1999, however, the man from Valais had been plagued by a recurring bout of cancer. After an initial operation, the Olympian had to go under the knife again two years later - another "bastard", as Dill-Bundi called the cancer, was cut out. This was followed in 2006 by a relapse, the doctors almost giving up, intensive treatment, the next operation - and survival. Until the cancer returned again in 2016 - to stay. Time and again, parts of Dill-Bundi's brain were removed along with the tumors, in the end around 30 percent of it ...

Dill-Bundi, for whom "life was always worth living" and who never shied away from the fight for his life in his Valais home, died shortly before his 66th birthday. He leaves behind three children.