Cardiac conditions don’t just affect the elderly and unfit – even young, fit and healthy cyclists can be affected. Could it be worth taking a little test?
This March, 26-year-old former world solo 24-hour mountain bike champ and journalist James Williamson was riding in the Cape Epic stage race in South Africa when he died of a previously undiagnosed genetic cardiac condition.
The Australian’s death isn’t as isolated an incident as you might think. British cyclist and coach John Ibbotson died of a genetic heart condition in 2005, Adrian Hawkins had just been selected for the GB Cycling Squad for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 when he died of cardiac failure, and in 2007 Danny Bennett, member of the French cycling team Charvieu Chavagneu, died of a heart attack caused by a heart condition called myocarditis. These are just a handful of the athletes who have lost their lives to cardiac failure, all of them young and ?t.
