"Death should stay away from young
men’s games. Death belongs in musty
hospital rooms, sickbeds. It should not impinge its terrible
presence on the celebrations of youth, reap its frightful harvest
in fields where cheers ring and bands play and banners
wave."
Jim Murray |
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Sudden Death in Athletes
Sudden death of a competitive athlete is a personal tragedy and an
irony of sports with a great emotional disturbance that shakes the
team members and the communities nation-wide. An athlete is capable
of exceptionally high levels of performance for long periods of
time and constitutes the healthiest segment of our society.
Exercise has always been advocated as a protective measure against
disease and death…So why does an
individual like that with superior athletic performance die at a
young age?
Sudden death of an athlete has interested the medical community
since the first report of an unexpected death of the Greek soldier
Pheldippides on completing a historic run from Marathon to Athens
to deliver the message of victory over the Persians in 490 B.C.
While the overall athlete population is at generally low risk, a
number of congenital but unsuspected on medical evaluation
cardiovascular diseases have been linked to sudden death in young
trained athletes.
To An Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the marketplace;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Alfred Edward Housmann, 1895 |
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Sudden deaths of high-profile elite athletes have substantially
increased interest in the overall prevalence of such events, the
role of pre-participation screening for the detection of diseases
that may not manifest themselves with symptoms or abnormal physical
examination and the mechanisms of sudden death in athletes. Given
the large number of competitive athletes in the United States and
other countries, and the recent public health initiatives on
physical activity and exercise, these issues have become
particularly relevant.
For more information on the causes of sudden death in athletes
identified to date, click here.
For more information on research and publications in medical
journals on sudden death in athletes, click here.
For information on sudden death in athletes appeared in the
news, click here.
For information regarding pre-participation screening of
athletes and current initiatives, click here.
Do you know of a case of sudden death
in a young athlete and would like to submit information about it to
the National Registry of Sudden Death in Athletes?
Would you help fund research efforts of the Minneapolis Heart
Institute Foundation and the National Registry of Sudden Death in
Athletes? click here to
send an inquiry.
If you are a journalist and are seeking more information on
sudden death in athletes, click
here to e-mail the research scientists of the National Registry
of Sudden Death in Athletes.
