Olympian Madeline Musselman’s Husband Supports Her in Paris Amid Cancer Battle

Madeline Musselman’s husband, Patrick Woepse, supported her at the 2024 Paris Olympics despite battling lung cancer.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, 26-year-old Musselman had Woepse cheering her on from the sidelines as she competed for gold with her water polo teammates. The couple recently discussed Woepse’s rare cancer diagnosis in an interview with NBC Los Angeles.

“It’s a stage four lung cancer-specific mutation,” Woepse said. “At that time I didn’t know what that meant.”

Although both played water polo for UCLA, they ultimately met at a friend’s wedding in 2022. They tied the knot the following year after Woepse received a rare cancer diagnosis just months after their engagement. Woepse began to suspect something was wrong while training to swim the English Channel when a persistent cough wouldn’t go away.

“It was a nagging cough that didn’t go away,” he told Today. “I didn’t really think much of it other than it didn’t seem any different than any normal cough I’ve had before.”

“I never smoked. We have a pretty healthy lifestyle,” he added. “Hearing that news was a huge shock and obviously devastating.”

During an X-ray, doctors discovered a “mass” and did a biopsy, revealing he had a rare, aggressive cancer called “NUT carcinoma,” which thrives in the head, neck, and lungs, according to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“With Pat’s diagnosis, we decided we wanted to get married as soon as possible,” Musselman told NBC Los Angeles. “All the people that came together to make it happen within four days – it was pretty crazy. We had flowers. We had a church that welcomed us with open arms to marry us. It was just a perfect weekend.”

Both continued to support each other as they chased their athletic goals. Woepse went on to swim the English Channel, and Musselman became a Tokyo Olympics MVP. However, Musselman’s Olympic training began to overlap with her husband’s chemotherapy treatments.

“There are times where I wanted to be with him, but he’s like, ‘No, you have to go to practice,’” she noted. “Obviously, I want him to know that I’m there, but yeah, it’s been hard.”

For Woepse, his wife’s Olympic training motivated him to keep pushing forward with his treatments. This drive led him to be able to watch her lead her team to victory against Greece this week.

“We’re sharing our story not for people to feel sorry for us or feel bad for what we’re going through,” she explained. “If anything, it’s for inspiration, and that you can get to the other side of things. With the people that are right next to you, we hope for that.”