One step from death: athletes who survived serious illnesses and returned to sports
Kyiv • UNN
Stories of famous athletes who survived heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and other deadly diseases. Some of them were able to return to professional sports and continue a successful career.
It's probably no secret that modern professional sports have nothing to do with well-being and maintaining excellent human health. Of course, we are talking about leading sports such as football, basketball, hockey, and especially martial arts: boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and no-holds-barred fighting. Training before going out onto the field or into the ring is extremely difficult, and it's easy to get injured. Broken limbs, cuts on the head, and even broken ribs are an incomplete list of what happens to professionals in their training camp.
As for the competitions themselves, it's even harder there. Sometimes they end not only with injuries for athletes, but also with disability and death. And we haven't even mentioned exhausting diets and the use of doping (although almost all athletes deny taking steroids). So, in such a regime, a person has to live for several years, or even decades, so strokes, heart attacks, cancerous tumors, and sudden cardiac arrests are not isolated cases in the world of sports.
The editorial board of UNN decided to collect stories of athletes who "were one step away from death" but survived, and some of them returned to big sports.
Christian Eriksen
Sport: Football
Country: Denmark
Age: 33 years old
Heart attack
Christian Eriksen's story is a tale of how to "visit the other side," resurrect, and return to the big arena, while being even better than before, and this is no exaggeration.
June 21, 2021, became a "judgment day" for the then 29-year-old midfielder. Playing for the Danish national team in the European Football Championship against the Czech Republic, Christian Eriksen collapsed during the first half. Doctors tried to revive him for 9 minutes. But artificial respiration and closed-chest cardiac massage did not help. The footballer regained consciousness but could not breathe or move. So, Christian was carried off the field on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. There, he was diagnosed with a heart attack, and doctors began to resuscitate him. Later, it became known that Eriksen's condition had stabilized. When the athlete began his recovery program, he was fitted with a pacemaker. Christian later shared what he felt at that moment.
I left this world for five minutes, and then my heart was restarted. I remember everything except those five minutes – the throw-in, the ball hitting my knee… And then I don't remember what happened. Then I regained consciousness, people were standing around me, and I felt pressure on my chest. I tried to regain my breath. Opening my eyes, I didn't really understand what was happening. At that moment, I had no idea what had happened to me. My first thoughts were: did something happen to my legs? Did I break my back? Can I lift my leg? I tried to make micro-movements to understand what exactly happened to me
Almost no one believed that the Dane would return to big football. Italian "Inter", where Eriksen played before the fatal incident, for understandable reasons terminated the contract with the midfielder, fearing that he might not survive on the field. But Christian returned.
On December 2, 2021, Eriksen began training with the youth team of "Odense". However, no club wanted to sign the player, except for the English "Brentford". On February 22, 2022, Christian played his first official match after the break and in March returned to the Danish national team.
Eriksen's career only gained momentum from there. He began playing for the world football giant "Manchester United", where he remains to this day. Now the player feels, as he himself says, one hundred percent and is not going to hang up his boots.
Iker Casillas
Sport: Football
Country: Spain
Age: 43 years old
Heart attack
The legendary Spanish goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, was less fortunate than Christian Eriksen. Casillas could not return to football after a heart attack. His heart attack occurred during training in 2019, when he was playing for Portuguese "Porto".
While performing one of the exercises, Iker felt that he couldn't breathe, as if something was strongly squeezing his chest. He approached the coach and said that he didn't know what was happening to him, and then lost consciousness. He was quickly hospitalized. At the medical facility, doctors provided appropriate resuscitation to the footballer, and his life was saved.
After this incident, Casillas no longer played, but continued to train. And two years later, he became one of the main investors in Spanish football. Casillas also invests heavily in the development of medical technologies to save patients with heart attacks. This topic became the most important for him. He admitted to journalists that after the heart attack, he was born again and will always help people who have big problems with the "main engine of the body."
I feel great now. Money is important too, but first and foremost we want to make the world a better place. We help people by simplifying disease diagnosis, finding jobs for former athletes, and making football technologies accessible to amateurs. This is just the beginning, we have many plans
Let us remind you, Iker Casillas is considered the most decorated goalkeeper in the history of football. He has won the Spanish championship, the Spanish Cup, the Champions League multiple times, and the European Championship and the World Cup twice.
Kris Letang
Sport: Hockey player
Country: Canada
Age: 37 years old
Kris Letang is one of the best defensemen in the National Hockey League, the most prestigious hockey championship in the world. The man has been playing for the "Pittsburgh Penguins" for almost 20 years. Together with the club, Kris became an NHL champion (Stanley Cup) three times: in 2009, 2016, and 2017.
In 2014, the defenseman suffered his first stroke. He lost consciousness at home, unable to move for several hours. Kris did not go to the doctor immediately, but did so a couple of days later when he started feeling nauseous. At that time, the examination showed that Letang was born with a small hole in the wall of his heart. However, his recovery, surprisingly, was too quick. The hockey player returned to the ice in just two months.
The second stroke hit Kris eight years later, in 2022, as announced by his team. But even here, the hockey player was lucky; he had no lingering effects from this fatal incident.
"Kris reported symptoms to team personnel on Monday and was immediately taken to the hospital for testing," said club general manager Ron Hextall. "The test results were shocking, but we are grateful that Kris is doing well. We are grateful to the medical staff and doctors. He is a warrior on the ice, but first and foremost he is a son, father, husband, and friend. His health is our number one priority."
Currently, Kris Letang continues to play in the NHL, and it seems that nothing portends trouble.
IIHF makes new decision on Russian and Belarusian hockey players07.02.25, 12:50 • 22579 views
Lance Armstrong
Sport: Cycling
Country: USA
Age: 53 years old
Testicular cancer
Lance Armstrong is a vivid example of victory over cancer, which, according to doctors, should not have left the athlete any chance. In October 1996, the 25-year-old cyclist was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Moreover, it was so advanced that metastases were already in Armstrong's stomach, lungs, and brain. He underwent surgery to remove a testicle, but that was not enough.
Lance wrote in his autobiography that he believed he would live. And this is despite the fact that Armstrong began coughing up blood.
The athlete underwent a second operation in America, on his brain. Doctors did not rule out that this operation could end tragically and Armstrong would be left disabled. But everything passed. It was a miracle, but Lance began to recover. After a short recovery, he returned to big sports.
Armstrong won the most prestigious cycling race in the world, the "Tour de France", 7 times in a row. In 2012, he admitted to constantly being on doping. For this, Lance was stripped of all his won titles. Although the attitude towards him became colder, the cyclist is still respected for his victory over oncology.
Eric Abidal
Sport: Football
Country: France
Age: 45 years old
Liver cancer
Multiple Champions League winner and one of the best defenders of his generation, Eric Abidal, achieved his main victory outside the football field. The Frenchman defeated liver cancer.
Five-time Champions League champion Marcelo retires06.02.25, 17:04 • 24991 view
In 2009, Eric Abidal, then a "Barcelona" player, contracted swine flu. In 2011, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Doctors hypothesized that the flu provoked the growth of metastases. Immediately, he underwent a multi-hour operation to remove them, and just two weeks later, Abidal returned to play football.
However, the disease did not recede. In 2012, Abidal underwent a liver transplant. The Frenchman played with the new organ until 2014 inclusive.
Fatal cases
The stories we have presented are only a small part of how athletes have overcome illnesses and returned, or continued to perform with fatal symptoms. In fact, there are dozens, even hundreds, of such examples.
Separately, there are also cases when athletes died right during competitions.
Boxer Leavander Johnson suffered a brain tumor in a fight with Jesus Chavez and died in intensive care. A large number of bodybuilders: Dallas McCarver, Nasser El Sonbaty, Rich Piana, Shawn Rhoden passed away, because the training loads and most likely anabolic steroids took their toll – the athletes' hearts could not withstand it.
Fatal cases, as well as cases of disability, are common among athletes. So, what is it: is it the price for great success, or does modern sport simply offer such trends that are incompatible with the normal functioning of the body?
Everyone will have their own answer, and we, in no way, condemn the rules of big sports, because everyone chooses whether to agree to them and become a professional.