The first one I remember was called Joachim Halupczock, Polish, born in 1968He won the 1989 amateur world championship in Chambery, after taking silver in the 100 kilometers won by East Germany, who had already beaten his Poland team at the Seoul Olympics the year before. Halupczock turned professional with Diana Colnago, but At the end of his first year he developed a heart problem: a cardiac arrhythmia which forced him to stop for the entire following season..
I met him in 1992, when he returned to racing with the MG-GB born from the merger between Del Tongo and the Belgian group of Patrick Lefevere, between Ballerini and Chioccioli, Museeuw and his compatriot Zenon Jaskula. He raced for only one year, but that too big heart continued to give him problems and they convinced him to stop, this time for good. He died of a heart attack in 1994 during a soccer match.
Haussler, Polanc and Vanmarcke
The heart is a serious thing: the real difference. Champions are distinguished from others based on their abilityThe legendary bradycardic frequencies of Bartali and Coppi, as well as Indurain, were the basis of their being so resistant and strong. You have to trust your heartYou don't see it like your legs; rather, you feel it throbbing in your neck and chest. At times, it pumps so hard it beats over 200 beats: what happens if you suddenly feel like you can't trust it anymore?
Yet cases of riders forced to stop due to sudden heart problems have always been a rare occurrence. Just ask the team doctors. Recently, if anything, we have come across athletes undergoing ablation to resolve arrhythmias or fibrillations, which could have put them at risk, whose origins have been traced back to years-old episodes.
Instead this season, Three WorldTour team professionals have hung up their bikes due to heart complications.Haussler, Polanc, Vanmarcke (in the opening photo), athletes who are already quite grown-up, but who have been in perfect working order for years. Adding their experiences to what happened in 2022 in Sonny Colbrelli, the desire to reflect more deeply remained on the tip of the pen for a long time. Each case deserves a separate treatment: falling into indifference is the last thing you want, but the timing is unusual..
The Masciarelli case
In fact, at this point someone will already be standing and pointing the finger at vaccines against CovidThe topic is well known and has been debated at length, but it still stands (again) against the absence of clinical literature that can support or disprove the thesis. The pandemic years have certainly left some after-effects. And even if it's not a vaccine, it would be worth doing. a reflection on the time it took some athletes to get back on track after contracting the virus.
In fact, if the clinical investigation techniques are always the same and fitness visits do not differ from what they were in 2019At the moment, only Italy is forcing its athletes to follow the Return to Play protocol, albeit a more lenient one than initially required, before resuming competitive activity. This doesn't happen abroad. Vanmarcke stopped after experiencing an arrhythmia at the last national championships and the discovery of scar tissue on the heart muscle (the same one that, for example, results from myocarditis), which in perspective could have created bigger problems. Let's be clear, even with an incautious recovery after mononucleosis you run the same risk, but Covid may have accentuated it.
A thorough visit done in advance Would he have detected the problem earlier? Probably yes. The Masciarelli case it's obvious. If it hadn't been for the May fall and the consequent hospitalization, the Abruzzese of Team Colpack-Ballan he would not have discovered the pericarditis for which he was immediately stopped. Lorenzo has been out of action for two months and has recently been cleared. and is ready to restart from Livigno. He followed a similar path Gianmarco Garofoli, stopped for a long time to protect his health.
Failure to share
You don't joke with your heart. This could help dispel doubts and identify a common and safe way out for everyone, even for amateurs who perhaps have never looked into their health before getting back in the saddle, would be sharing experiences, as Vanmarcke has done. All the others who have closed themselves off behind the legitimate right to privacy are effectively preventing us from understanding anything further. And the clinical literature that is lamented as lacking will increasingly struggle to develop.
