Athlete of March 2020

Surfer Bruno Hansen (Denmark) won an unprecedented fifth World Championship in a row for the Prone discipline at the World ParaSurfing Championships in March in California, USA. Hansen won his latest world title with a victory margin of almost six points, a gigantic difference in a sport in which the maximum score available is 20. More than deservedly, he is our Athlete of March 2020!

Bruno Hansen, who was born in Zimbabwe in 1971, has always been at home on the water, learning to surf as a child on a crocodile-infested lake. Through the 1970's he spent a wild childhood experiencing terrorist bombing attacks as well as lions, leopards, elephants and baboons on his walks to school. His parents survived a passenger airplane crash, and the family later fled war into South Africa where he finished school and studied mechanical engineering. He also served in the South African and Danish navies.

When Bruno Hansen was 27, he became paralysed from the waist down in a botched carjacking, and his doctors told him that he would never walk again. This led him to fall into a state of depression. For years he considered suicide, and one day, he tried to end his life in the ocean, using a borrowed longboard to paddle out to deep water. By accident, he ended up surfing back in to shore and realised, slowly, that he might have found a new calling.

Since then, Hansen has won numerous competitions, his pinnacle of success being the five-times sequence in the World ParaSurfing Championships. Besides sports achievements, in 2004 he survived the Asian Tsunami alone on a yacht on the Thai shore. He is really living according to his determination:

 

You can still do the things you used to do, just do them differently.

Bruno Hansen will receive The World Games Athlete of the Month diploma as well as a branded gift from the Official Sponsor of Athlete of the Month, Protective Life.

ABOUT PROTECTIVE

Protective Life Corporation provides financial services through the production, distribution and administration of insurance and investment products throughout the U.S. The company traces its roots to the corporation’s flagship company, Protective Life Insurance Company – founded in 1907. Throughout its more than 110-year history, Protective’s growth and success can be largely attributed to its ongoing commitment to serving people and doing the right thing – for its employees, distributors, and most importantly, its customers. The company’s home office is located in Birmingham, Alabama, and its 3,000 employees are located in offices across the United States. As of December 31 2018, the Company had assets of approximately $90 billion. Protective Life Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc. (TSE:8750). For more information about Protective, please visit www.Protective.com.

 The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee. The 11th edition of The World Games will be held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 15-25 July 2021. 3,600 athletes from over 30 sports and 100 countries will take part in the Games.

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