Family support fuels Olympic badminton champion Viktor Axelsen

PARIS – Badminton is a family affair for Viktor Axelsen.

His wife Natalia Rohde is a former Denmark national player, while he is managed by his father and his coach is his father-in-law. Coincidentally, both men are named Henrik.

He may have a family team behind him now, but by his own admission, the defending men’s singles Olympic champion “was not really a team player”. Axelsen, 30, added: “I like individual sports and I like to face my own challenges by myself when I’m on court.”

But things are different now, as he and his family explained to The Straits Times.

In October 2020, he and Rohde had their first child Vega. The couple got married five months later.

After Axelsen won the Olympic gold in 2021, they uprooted from Copenhagen to live in Dubai, where his training base is. He added a second world championship in August 2022, and two months later they welcomed second daughter, Aya.

The world No. 2, who faces Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew in the quarter-finals in Paris on Aug 2, said: “I used to be one person, and badminton was my all, my world. If I didn’t train or play well, it affected my life so much. But that has changed tremendously.

“I play for us as a family now, it is a huge motivation for me when I train and go for a match. I’m not the crazy optimisation freak I once was, I have taken the best of both worlds, which means that there is a balance.”

A key reason Axelsen can focus entirely on his career is Rohde’s selflessness. Once ranked as high as 35th in the women’s singles, she began dating Axelsen in 2018, when she retired due to injuries and her studies.

After 18 months, she stopped her medical studies to pursue midwifery, but got pregnant with Vega and chose to dedicate her time to the family.

Rohde, who turned 29 on Aug 1, said: “I know how it is to be a badminton player on tour. My role right now is making sure the kids are happy and everything is good at home especially when Viktor is travelling.”

She and their daughters are occasionally courtside at tournaments and while their lifestyle can be “overwhelming”, she plays padel to help de-stress.

Teasing her husband for being “way behind” when it comes to changing diapers, she added: “All jokes aside, Viktor loves being a father and even though he can’t be two places at once, he is really good with the daughters when he is home with us.

“He has become way better at handling his mood swings after he became a father... Vega and Aya don’t care about his bad training and bad mood, so they make him happy again very quickly.”

Axelsen’s own childhood has also played a significant part in his successful career. Henrik, 62, highlighted how he exposed his son to various sports, but never pressured him to become a champion.

He said: “Soccer was most important for him as a five-year-old, then he started badminton and one day as an eight-year-old, he told me, ‘Dad if I have to choose only one sport, it will be badminton. I feel the other guys in soccer don’t want to win as much as I do. I want to be on my own on the court’.

“When he played around in Denmark, we had hundreds of great tours around along with his little sister Johanne. I just wanted to see them grow as nice human beings, doing whatever it takes to be a nice person. But for sure Viktor has some great skills, and he loves to be the best version of himself.”

Spending so much time with family members also requires tact and understanding, however. In an interview with Denmark’s TV2, Henrik Rohde said: “The worst thing is when we lose. Then we basically don’t talk to each other... We are on the same plane, but we are sitting separately.

“It usually takes a day or so. Then we are ready to take up the fight again, and then we have analysed it for ourselves, so we have something to offer.”

Acting on his younger sister Johanne’s recommendation, Axelsen engaged mental coach Bjarne Christiansen, a former member of Danish elite special operations forces Jaeger Corps. He has learnt how not to be too hard on himself when it comes to training load, while remaining fiercely competitive.

Hugely appreciative of his family’s efforts, Axelsen shared that his favourite time of the day is having breakfast with his wife and two girls.

He said: “Those first few hours of the day are something really valuable to me. They keep me grounded, give me a lot of motivation and take my mind off badminton a little bit.

“The teamwork we have as a family has given me a lot of extra power on court, especially knowing that I have a strong support system, no matter where we are in the world.”