Meet the Paris Olympics presenter and friend of Prince Harry who had his arm sewn into his stomach after an explosion left him fighting for his life

As JJ Chalmers takes to BBC‘s studios in Paris where he’s on the broadcaster’s presenting team for the 2024 Olympic Games, the former royal marine has come a long way after a very close brush with death 13 years ago.

The 37-year-old presenter, whose full name and title is Lance Corporal John James Chalmers, is a close friend of Prince Harry and has competed in the duke’s Invictus Games tournaments for wounded servicemen and women. 

But in 2011, when he was serving in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan, Chalmers was severely injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack which killed two of his comrades.

Thankfully, Edinburgh-born Chalmers survived the attack, but he has since had to undergo nearly 30 operations after losing part of his arm, shattering his elbow and suffering leg injuries.

After recovering from the horror blast, Chalmers pursued athletics, which led to him competing in Prince Harry’s 2014 Invictus Games – and paved the way for television career that saw him become a jewel in the BBC’s crown as one of the broadcaster’s most popular presenters.

Here, FEMAIL takes a deep dive into JJ Chalmers’s extraordinary story of survival and determination, and how he won the hearts of viewers up and down the country…

Lance Corporal John James Chalmers, known as JJ, from Edinburgh, is set to co-host BBC1’s morning show for the Paris Olympics which starts on Friday

The Royal Marines

Chalmers suffered serious injuries during a bomb blast in 2011 while in the Royal Marines at the age of 23 and based in Helmand, Afghanistan. 

He lost two fingers, his right elbow disintegrated, and he suffered facial and leg injuries in the blast.

He went on to have 30 operations over four years. He had to learn how to walk again, dress and feed himself.

Even those parts of his body not damaged were affected by the recovery process. In the most gruelling and risky procedure, his shattered arm was sewn temporarily into his abdomen, to increase blood flow — with flesh from his abdomen ‘grafted’ on. 

The Frankenstein-sounding procedure (he had to ask the doctors to explain it several times) left him looking ‘like the victim of a shark attack’, but it was a small price to pay, he said.

Describing the moments after the explosion, he told the Daily Mirror: ‘I went to move one of my arms after I was hit and it just wasn’t there – it was hanging off.

‘Then I brought my other hand up and I saw all of my fingers either gone or hanging off and I just thought; ‘What can I do for myself now?”

The former British Royal Marine Reservist suffered serious injuries in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Afghanistan in 2011

He lost two fingers, his right elbow disintegrated, and he suffered facial and leg injuries in the blast

After an agonising wait for help to arrive, Chalmers was rescued and flown home, waking up 10 days later in hospital in Birmingham surrounded by his family.

Despite initially hoping he might be able to return to the front to fight, the intervening years have been a hard battle through a series of operations, some up to 14 hours long.

As well as having tissue transplanted from his leg to his arm, he also had his arm grafted to his midriff, in what he describes as a ‘sling created out of my own skin’.

The explosion claimed the lives of two soldiers and left nine others maimed or traumatised. 

Invictus Games

Chalmers (right) alongside the Duke of Sussex at the Invictus Games 2016 at ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida

Prince Harry hugs JJ as he arrived to watch wheelchair basketball Invictus Games, in Dusseldorf, Germany

Three years after the blast which nearly killed him, Chalmers competed in the cycling, volleyball and athletics in the Games, in London in 2014.

He said: ‘The Invictus Games have given a whole international community of wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women something to strive for.

‘For us it’s about much more than four days of sport. We’ll be ready to show our Invictus spirit in the sporting arena.

‘That all starts with the opening ceremony and we hope the public will be there to give us their support. It promises to be quite a show and will set the tone for what’s to come.’  

Chalmers secured gold in the Men’s IRecB1 Recumbent Circuit Race, bronze in the 1-mile timed trial and bronze in the 4x 100 mixed relay. 

TV career 

The former Royal Marine and gold medal-winning cyclist at the 2014 Invictus Games is set to co-host BBC1’s morning show for the Paris Olympics

JJ and Amy Dowden during the live show on the BBC1 dancing contest, Strictly Come Dancing in 2020

In 2020, he finished in the quarter finals of the celebrity Strictly Come Dancing with Amy Dowden

With his first hand experience of the Invictus Games, Chalmers returned in 2016 as the presenter, fronting coverage for the BBC, and since then the TV gigs have rolled in.

Since then he went onto present the 2016 Rio Paralympics for Channel 4, 2018 Commonwealth Games for BBC and appeared on the likes of The Last Leg, Superhumans Show.

In 2017, JJ began presenting sports segments on the BBC News Channel and BBC Sports. 

He was also part of the presenting team for the BBC’s Trooping of the Colour coverage in 2018.

Meanwhile in 2020, he finished in the quarter finals of the celebrity Strictly Come Dancing.

Friendship with Prince Harry 

The Duke of Sussex (left) and JJ at the wheelchair basketball competition during the Invictus Games at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Dusseldorf

Prince Harry chatted with former competitor and now commentator JJ outside the competitor’s tent at the swimming pool Invictus Games, Orlando, in 2016 

JJ is a close friend of Prince Harry after they met in June 2014 at a rehabilitation triathlon where the pair became firm friends. 

It was the Duke of Sussex who persuaded to enter the first Invictus Games that September, and JJ won gold in the cycling event. 

Last year the pair were spotted at a wheelchair basketball match between Team UK and Ukraine at the games in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Harry was seen in an animated conversation with the former marine and the Prince cupped his hand over his mouth to stifle his giggles while Chalmers burst out laughing. 

The pair went on to enter the boisterous spirit of the match joining in as the huge crowd clapped along to the music, including Barbie Girl. 

Speaking about his friendship with Prince Harry in an interview with the Mail Online in 2020, he said: ‘He’s a veteran. He’s a guy who’s seen it, done it, and he understands it in a way lots of other people don’t.

‘He’s shaped me, helped me, looked after me, because that’s what veterans do.’

Personal Life 

JJ Chalmers married Kornelia Chitursko back in 2015. It is not known how the pair met, but JJ trained with Kornelia for the Invictus Games

JJ Chalmers married Kornelia Chitursko back in 2015. It is not known how the pair met, but JJ trained with Kornelia for the Invictus Games.

The couple have a daughter Hayley, eight, and son James, six.

Kornelia is his cheerleader, adviser, mentor, confidante. When he was at death’s door, she acted as his nurse and their relationship was still in the early stages when he was injured.

Previously speaking to MailOnline, she said: ‘It was one of the things life throws at you, I had no idea how to deal with it, but I just knew I had to.’

They both single out the turning point in their relationship as the day they walked along a hospital corridor, him leaning on her, and her holding his catheter bag.

‘There I was, a big strong Marine wanting to impress his girlfriend, having to have her carry the bag,’ JJ said.

‘I wanted to,’ she points out. ‘And the fact that he let me was everything. We were able to laugh about it at the time. I was at the side of him, with this bag of wee clipped to my pocket.’

Ditto the first time JJ took a shower, which he hadn’t been able to do in weeks. When he did, he needed to be supported. At first, he was mortified at the idea of his then girlfriend having to help him with something so intimate.

He let her, though. He’s still letting her. ‘If I’m having a wobble with anything, she’s the one who will get me through it.’

The pair met at university in 2007. JJ, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, was studying to be a teacher. Polish-born Kornelia, doing business studies, was part of his friendship circle, and had begun dating one of his friends.

‘He was seeing someone else, too. But I think I fell in love with him immediately — in a friend way. Everyone loved him. I don’t know how you wouldn’t. He was this smiley, happy, positive person.’

By 2010, they were dating. He graduated and started teaching. Yet there was another passion in his life — the Marine reserves, which he had been in all through university. And one day he sat her down and said he wanted ‘do his bit’, and go to Afghanistan.

She had only met his parents once ‘at a barbecue, before we were even going out. We were just friends then’ — but she remembers them all going to wave him off. It was the one and only time she met his friend, Sam Alexander.

‘They didn’t need to worry about me because Sam, the best Marine I’ve ever met, was going to be there,’ says JJ. Sam died instantly in that blast. So, too, did Lieutenant Ollie Augustin.

Both men’s names are often mentioned in the Chalmers house. JJ and Kornelia gave their daughter the middle name Olivia, in memory of Ollie. Their baby son James has Sam as his middle name.

Kornelia said JJ will never get over that loss, and honouring his ‘brothers’ is what drives every decision he makes.