William Walker

[MonteCristo]

Does anyone have information regarding William Walker? I would like to know what kind of heart problem he is suffering from and where he stands in treatment, can't find anything about him.

 

[Anonymous]

its bells palsy.. not a heart problem as far as i know...

bells palsy appears to some like a stroke, paralysing one side of the face, it gradually clears up but takes a while.. related to cold sores and syphillis...

(i dont know he guy.. i just googled william+walker+cyclist and youd be amazed what was there)

 

[MonteCristo]

From what I understand he suffered Bells Palsy as a result of a crash, injuring a facial nerve, but supposedly he overcame that and is now not competing due to a cardiac problem that was detected during the Tour Down Under this year.

 

[patswana]

From what I understand he suffered Bells Palsy as a result of a crash, injuring a facial nerve, but supposedly he overcame that and is now not competing due to a cardiac problem that was detected during the Tour Down Under this year.

I believe it is supraventricular tachycardia or paroxysmal atrial tachycardia.
He had several attempts at radio-frequency ablation to cure it but the cardiologist struggled to fix it and ended up ablating a whole lot of normal myocardium instead.

 

[MonteCristo]

Thanks patswana. The reason I ask is because I am suffering from the same damned thing and after two ablations, the most recent one being 2 weeks ago, it has not gone away. I wanted to know how he was dealing with this and if it was onlky while riding that he suffers from this. Do you have any information on him, where I can read something online, or best bet would be to get in touch with him somehow.

Thanks.

 

[patswana]

Thanks patswana. The reason I ask is because I am suffering from the same damned thing and after two ablations, the most recent one being 2 weeks ago, it has not gone away. I wanted to know how he was dealing with this and if it was onlky while riding that he suffers from this. Do you have any information on him, where I can read something online, or best bet would be to get in touch with him somehow.

Thanks.

I am not sure what Will is doing now, but options are:
Drugs - not ideal as they are slightly performance detracting.
Trying again with the ablation but I would look carefully at the choice of Cardiologist and make sure that they are very well regarded for EPS work. Will lives in Melbourne and should therefore go and see John Kalman.

 

[M Sport]

I was doing some browsing around and found this article from a few weeks ago. I remembered some people on here had been asking ... so here you go ....

http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/news/8982/What-happened-to-William-Walker

I think Will has been riding a little more lately than he lets on in that article though.

 

[Ibanez]

I remember a lot of people were highly critical of Rabobank for sending Walker to te Vuelta so young...it was his first ProTour race IIRC.

And in that interview he says his problems have been recurrent ever since he finished it. I wonder if he just was not ready.

 

[auscyclefan94]

I heard that at the tdu his bpm was at around 300-350. He is working for netti now and is married to Aldo Sassi's daughter