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Gert Jan Theunisse heart attacks/ pacemaker

Last Post 12/05/2013 10:41 PM by Frederick Jones. 8 Replies.

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Posts:1767

12/05/2013 10:39 AM
Wonder how much doping had to do with this. Considering his fellow cyclists were dying in the middle of the night due to blood the consistency of tar Gert should count his lucky stars http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/15950/Pacemaker-for-former-pro-Theunisse-after-multiple-heart-attacks.aspx

Posts:4499

12/05/2013 12:18 PM
Him and Rooks, two of my favorite riders of those days. Good times. Doping aside, he's been torturing his body for a really long time, continuing even after the accident that almost confined him to a wheelchair. Crazy, in a good way.

Posts:93

12/05/2013 12:47 PM
Most of his pro career predates EPO. He certainly had a rep as a dope fiend though

Posts:19

12/05/2013 03:29 PM
Steroid abuse isn't good for the heart, just ask CA's former Governor.

Posts:2886

12/05/2013 03:56 PM
Injecting a bit of medical reality. The rush to blame every medical problem in former riders on doping during their careers is just plain silly. Arnold had a congenital defect ( bicuspid aortic valve). Steroids did not cause his heart problem. You might just as well blame his womanizing if that's what you find offensive.

Posts:3189

12/05/2013 06:00 PM
lsd, I have a friend who was a star on his high school basketball team. In line for a scholarship for college. Senior year he was in a bad car accident that wrecked his legs and saved is life. "Huh?" you ask. He had no idea he was Marfan Syndrome, that the exertion of college level hoops would almost certainly burst his aorta. He didn't learn of this condition until his brother died of sudden heart failure and he and his siblings all went to be tested. (His mom had already passed from heart attack, but since she died in a state that did not require autopsy for deaths without suspicion, no test was made. His brother lived in Minnesota which required the autopsy.) Had he gone on to college hoops and PEDed his way through and suffered that heart attack later, we would be discussing here how the PEDs led to that heart attack. Ben

Posts:1767

12/05/2013 06:12 PM
The rush to blame every medical problem in former riders on doping during their careers is just plain silly. Maybe so but it's like amazing cycling performances… we've become rather jaundiced and view everything with a skeptics eye including otherwise healthy males having heart attacks.

Posts:4499

12/05/2013 06:26 PM
I suggest you run this 2003 article through google translate. Doesn't exclude PEDs as a factor but it certainly provides context on possible other factors. There's nothing to discuss/analyze if you don't know the context. At that point it's just gossip. Not that there's anything wrong with that. http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4324/Nieuws/archief/article/detail/1776839/2003/02/15/Het-motto-van-Theunisse-sterven-en-dan-nog-doorgaan.dhtml Plain crazy addicted to punishing his body, that's for sure. On top of that he suffered multiple blackouts before he finally got it into his skull to see a doctor.

Posts:2886

12/05/2013 10:41 PM
OC, thanks for the pic. Gotta love Theunisse's rock star good looks. Bet the podium girls loved kissing him! If Didi Th. had half his guts, he would have won several Grand Tours. Dale, I direct my skepticism to claims that the majority of pro road riders aren't doping right now.