'With euthanasia you are sure you will have a soft beautiful death' 

Belgian Paralympic athlete Marieke Vervoort, who had a cruel degenerative illness, was ableto chose the moment and means of her death, writes Jennifer Rankin

Belgium's Marieke Vervoort during the final of the women's 400 m (T52) of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Picture: Getty Images

Marieke Vervoort died aged 40 on Tuesday, October 22, 2019 about 8.15pm. She was at her home in Diest in north-eastern Belgium, her parents and loved ones at her bedside, following a small party with friends. It all was exactly as she had planned.

Vervoort, a world-record-breaking Paralympian with an incurable, degenerative condition that caused her agonising pain, chose to die under Belgium’s euthanasia law. Now a documentary film on release in her native Flanders recounts the story of her final years and how she chose the moment of her death.