Addicted and homeless - a wild ride from the streets to the elite

Felipe Nystrom: From drug addiction and despair to the world championship

This article contains references to child abuse, drug addiction and suicidal thoughts. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised,

As Felipe Nystrom approaches the hill, the cheers swell. His bike sliding and squelching through the mud, he reaches the bottom and jumps off, shouldering the frame.

Hundreds of fans urge him on as he struggles up the steep slope, cycling shoes sliding backwards as he edges forwards and upwards.

Far behind the other competitors, Nystrom reaches the top. He pauses, standing in silhouette against the wintery sun, and acknowledges the crowd. They return his salute with yet more cheers.

Nystrom's journey to these moments on a muddy cyclocross course in the south of the Netherlands has been traumatic and painful.

It has encompassed mental despair, homelessness, and attempted suicide.

It is a tale he is determined to tell, to help others who may be as desperate now as he once was.

"All I want is one person," Nystrom says. "One person to know that you can come out from under the grasp of addiction and alcoholism. It's going to be the hardest thing you ever did, but you can do it."

Nystrom was born in Costa Rica, the son of a local father and an American mother who had moved there with the Peace Corps, a United States government agency for international development.

His mother's work as a volunteer and aid worker meant he was often looked after by different people at short notice.

In his early years, that made him vulnerable. Nystrom describes desperately trying to hide in a drawer from one man who had taken to viciously beating him. He also has childhood memories of being sexually abused. None of those who Nystrom remembers abusing him ever faced charges or punishment.

"For the first eight years of my life, I think I lived in just panic, in terror, like every time the door opened, I didn't know what was going to happen," says Nystrom.

"I was almost like this feeling of complete helplessness. There is nothing I could do."

As he grew older, the abuse stopped, but its effects lingered. Nystrom was awkward and withdrawn, frequently in conflict at home and bullied at school.

The only time he felt comfortable was on the sports field; playing football, doing gymnastics and, as he puts it now, "anything to stay out of the house".

By his late teens, Nystrom had developed into a decent footballer and thought he might have a chance to make it as a professional.

But injury set him back and, instead of working on his recovery, he gave up his dreams.

"I thought sports were going to be the thing - 'I'm going to be a professional soccer player and it's going to be great'," he says.

"And then I couldn't really play anymore, and I think that was the moment, [at age] 18 or 19 I was so lost.

"I had no idea where I was going. I remember thinking, 'Well, I did everything I could, in soccer and sports, to make this happen. And now even that's gone.

"I've been good and still nothing good happens, maybe I should just party like everybody else."

As he digested the end of his sporting hopes, Nystrom started down the road which was to define his life.