• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this normal?

Page 6 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re:

RedheadDane said:
What really scares me is how random it seems to be whether anything is detected or not.
Tanguy Turgis dodged the bullet, but then there's Jimmy Duquennoy; nothing detected in the pre-season tests, seemed fine, and then… just... gone!
Well, SADS is random. We don't come with use-by dates stamped on our sternums.
 
Re:

King Boonen said:
This thread started with such good intentions...
This thread started with the intention of trying to add perspective to a complicated issue. Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? Consider the reality.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get a few names the journalist reporting the story remembers, nothing more, an incomplete and often misleading picture of reality.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get leaps between the World Tour (pop: c500 riders), pro conti and conti (pop: several thousand riders), track (pop: large), cross (pop: higher than you think), and even amateur levels (pop: vast). What seems unusual in a group of 500 riders doesn't always look unusual in a group of 10,000+ riders.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get next to no perspective on the real world incidence of such events, or even the incidence of such events in other sports. We know that SADS is real and we know that not all heart conditions can be spotted, no matter how much screening is put in place, so we know that we should expect some deaths and retirements. We just don't know how many.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get the usual leaping to conclusions that doping has to be involved. We've been through the problem of blaming doping: there's not enough cases for that to be true every time and if the argument is pushed we'll end up proving there is no doping and have to close the Clinic down.

Can doping be used to explain any of these cases? Maybe. The thyroid stories suggest there is genuine concern in some quarters about a particular problem, a problem thought to impact cycling. There was also genuine concern about the alleged EPO deaths in the early 1990s - even if not a single death in pro cycling has ever been ascribed to EPO - sufficient concern for the UCI to investigate the matter. There seems to be some evidence that the UCI is not unaware of the level of cardiac cases in cycling. But there doesn't seem to be a desire to talk publicly about the issue. So, while the UCI is now acting on the drugs we were complaining about three, four, five years ago, it may be only after Tim Kay's new Global Cycling Project has put a Chinese cyclist on the top step of the Tour's podium in 2025 that we'll see action from the UCI on thryroid meds. But can thyroid meds explain what we are actually seeing? I doubt it: it is at WT level that weight seems to be the biggest concern and yet here we are, nine months through 2018 and I don't think there's been a single cardiac case at WT level, which I don't think has happened since 2013.

Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? No. People still see only what people want to see. People don't really want real evidence.
 
Re: Re:

fmk_RoI said:
King Boonen said:
This thread started with such good intentions...
This thread started with the intention of trying to add perspective to a complicated issue. Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? Consider the reality.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get a few names the journalist reporting the story remembers, nothing more, an incomplete and often misleading picture of reality.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get leaps between the World Tour (pop: c500 riders), pro conti and conti (pop: several thousand riders), track (pop: large), cross (pop: higher than you think), and even amateur levels (pop: vast). What seems unusual in a group of 500 riders doesn't always look unusual in a group of 10,000+ riders.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get next to no perspective on the real world incidence of such events, or even the incidence of such events in other sports. We know that SADS is real and we know that not all heart conditions can be spotted, no matter how much screening is put in place, so we know that we should expect some deaths and retirements. We just don't know how many.

Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get the usual leaping to conclusions that doping has to be involved. We've been through the problem of blaming doping: there's not enough cases for that to be true every time and if the argument is pushed we'll end up proving there is no doping and have to close the Clinic down.

Can doping be used to explain any of these cases? Maybe. The thyroid stories suggest there is genuine concern in some quarters about a particular problem, a problem thought to impact cycling. There was also genuine concern about the alleged EPO deaths in the early 1990s - even if not a single death in pro cycling has ever been ascribed to EPO - sufficient concern for the UCI to investigate the matter. There seems to be some evidence that the UCI is not unaware of the level of cardiac cases in cycling. But there doesn't seem to be a desire to talk publicly about the issue. So, while the UCI is now acting on the drugs we were complaining about three, four, five years ago, it may be only after Tim Kay's new Global Cycling Project has put a Chinese cyclist on the top step of the Tour's podium in 2025 that we'll see action from the UCI on thryroid meds. But can thyroid meds explain what we are actually seeing? I doubt it: it is at WT level that weight seems to be the biggest concern and yet here we are, nine months through 2018 and I don't think there's been a single cardiac case at WT level, which I don't think has happened since 2013.

Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? No. People still see only what people want to see. People don't really want real evidence.

Cardiologists make the best doctors for endurance sports.
 
This article is about Freds and what happens with Freds doesn't really compare to what happens at the elite level of sport. But it does highlight the need for screening - which cycling does have, but could improve upon - and also the limits of screening.

Every week 12 young people die from sudden cardiac death. Is it time to start screening runners?
SCD in the young is a tragic and shocking phenomenon, which kills around 12 people aged 35 and under every week in the UK. An estimated one in 300 of the general population has an underlying heart condition predisposing them to SCD. With more than ten million people in Europe taking part in endurance sports such as marathons and iron man competitions, it is inevitable that we will hear the news of another young and fit person dying while participating in one of these events. In the younger population, SCD occurs due to structural heart disease, cardiomyopathy, or electrical disturbances of the heart. In older people, the risk is mainly due to coronary artery disease (heart attacks). Up to 80 per cent of SCD occurs in people who were previously free of any symptoms.
While screening works, it has its limits:
Research shows that mandatory screening of all young people in Italy who participated in sport led to an 89 per cent reduction in SCD.
Taking the number given for British deaths - 12 a week - were the UK to introduce screening of Freds and have the same success the Italians had, the death toll could fall to four every three weeks.

For perspective on the headline number: 12 a week is about 625 a year. About 44% of the UK population is aged below 35, so that's about 625 deaths out of about 29 million people, which is 0.002%, give or take.
 
Cyclists to have heart scans amid cardiac arrest fears

The screening at British Cycling is being carried out and paid for by a team from Liverpool John Moores University as part of their research into cardiac health among athletic people.

Professor John Somauroo, a sport and exercise cardiologist, said: "We know there are high profile athletes having cardiac arrests.

"But equally unfortunately there are about current thinking around 12 young athletes between the ages of 14 and 35 per week dropping dead in Britain.

"And in fact that's relatively old data and the newer data suggests that it's at least 20 young people if not even higher that are having those events per week."

He added: "If you were to have a bus load of kids crashing into a low bridge every week and half the children were killed.

"They'd do something about the bridges or the bus routes."
report
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

A good move from British Cycling. It's always seemed a bit of an oversight to only include the Electrocardiogram same as UCI and not go the whole hog with Echo Doppler and Echocardiogram too. It needs to be done by all NGBs really and UCI.
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

samhocking said:
A good move from British Cycling. It's always seemed a bit of an oversight to only include the Electrocardiogram same as UCI and not go the whole hog with Echo Doppler and Echocardiogram too. It needs to be done by all NGBs really and UCI.
It's good PR from BC. But the credit is all due to Liverpool John Moores. Let's see what BC does when that funding runs out ...
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

fmk_RoI said:
samhocking said:
A good move from British Cycling. It's always seemed a bit of an oversight to only include the Electrocardiogram same as UCI and not go the whole hog with Echo Doppler and Echocardiogram too. It needs to be done by all NGBs really and UCI.
It's good PR from BC. But the credit is all due to Liverpool John Moores. Let's see what BC does when that funding runs out ...

It's really due to John Somauroo, he's one of the leading researchers in this area in the world. Different universities are better or worse at supporting their researchers, but most only play a small role in securing funding for projects like this, which probably comes through the BHF or Cardiac Risk in the Young (who have funded some of his previous work).
 
Re: Re:

fmk_RoI said:
King Boonen said:
This thread started with such good intentions...
This thread started with the intention of trying to add perspective to a complicated issue. Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? Consider the reality.

......., nine months through 2018 and I don't think there's been a single cardiac case at WT level, which I don't think has happened since 2013.

There was one. Michael Goolerts at Paris Roubaix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Goolaerts
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

King Boonen said:
It's really due to John Somauroo, he's one of the leading researchers in this area in the world. Different universities are better or worse at supporting their researchers, but most only play a small role in securing funding for projects like this, which probably comes through the BHF or Cardiac Risk in the Young (who have funded some of his previous work).
Good point, well made.
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

My understanding from the newsletter is British Cycling have added this as policy, it's not just a research collaboration. One of my friends is a BC coach i'll see if he knows if BC are funding it or not too.
 
Re: Re:

fmk_RoI said:
Norks74 said:
There was one. Michael Goolerts at Paris Roubaix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Goolaerts
Oh. My. God.

Seriously.

Vérandas Willems–Crelan is a pro-conti team. Which is not WT.

WT is ambiguous, it can refer to a level of team (WorldTeam) or of event (World Tour): it was you who introduced the ambiguity without clarification. Paris-Roubaix is undoubtedly WT according to the second meaning, and you owe Norks74 an apology for your extreme rudeness.
 
Re: Re:

Armchair cyclist said:
fmk_RoI said:
Norks74 said:
There was one. Michael Goolerts at Paris Roubaix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Goolaerts
Oh. My. God.

Seriously.

Vérandas Willems–Crelan is a pro-conti team. Which is not WT.

WT is ambiguous, it can refer to a level of team (WorldTeam) or of event (World Tour): it was you who introduced the ambiguity without clarification. Paris-Roubaix is undoubtedly WT according to the second meaning, and you owe Norks74 an apology for your extreme rudeness.
Read the thread before offering lectures.

If he died in his bed would be it be classed as a memory foam mattress level event?
 
What a stupid comment: your comment was unclear, N74 interpreted it in a different way than you intended, and you leapt down his throat. Behave.

Your post that he was quoting used the term World Tour, not WorldTeam.

Goolaerts rode World Tour races, he was a World Tour rider.
 
Yes. Seriously.

No-one is claiming he was a WorldTeam rider: you seem to be either unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the difference.

But unless you are willing to apologise for the arrogance with which you have pursued your error, there is no sense in deflecting the thread further, and we will learn something about you.
 
Re:

Armchair cyclist said:
Yes. Seriously.

No-one is claiming he was a WorldTeam rider: you seem to be either unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the difference.

But unless you are willing to apologise for the arrogance with which you have pursued your error, there is no sense in deflecting the thread further, and we will learn something about you.
If you have anything substantive to add to the topic, please do. Otherwise, troll someone else. I've already learned more than I need to know about you.
 
Freeman on British Cycling's lack of support for cardiac screening beyond Podium and Academy athletes:
Personally, I wanted to extend the screening to any rider on a British Cycling programme aged fourteen and above, but despite proposing it in-house in early 2016 it was not picked up on as preparations for Rio 2016 were key at that time.
 
Re:

fmk_RoI said:
Freeman on British Cycling's lack of support for cardiac screening beyond Podium and Academy athletes:
Personally, I wanted to extend the screening to any rider on a British Cycling programme aged fourteen and above, but despite proposing it in-house in early 2016 it was not picked up on as preparations for Rio 2016 were key at that time.
In 2017 he proposed it again, following Charlie Craig's death:
Immediately after his death I went to management, knowing that it was time to act. But I was told that the problems caused by Jiffygate meant that the funding of the WPP programme was under threat. I should get on and do my job with the podium riders.
 

TRENDING THREADS