Ulster Rugby : CRY testing for all Ulster Rugby Academy Players

Ulster Rugby Academy

CRY testing for all Ulster Rugby Academy Players

21 February 2007, 10:56 am

By Anne Perry

The Ulster Rugby Academy in conjunction with the Sports Institute Northern Ireland (SINI) has recently started to test all athletes for Cardiac abnormalities. All the Ulster Rugby Academy players will have been tested for cardiac abnormalities by the end of March.

The testing has been set up by CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) who are a charity-based organisation whose mission is to raise awareness of undetected cardiac abnormalities in young, apparently healthy individuals. Although governmental statistics are not available, cardiac experts believe that at least 8 young people die each week in the UK from undiagnosed cardiac conditions. It is important to stress that the majority of these deaths ARE preventable. It is also important to realise that exercise is NOT bad for you, but can act as a trigger for an event if the individual already has underlying heart condition. A number of athletes at SINI in Jordanstown have already been tested and at least one cardiac abnormality has been discovered, resulting in that athlete stopping sport.

The Ulster Rugby community was very saddened when former Royal School Armagh 1st Captain John McCall died playing rugby for Ireland U19s in the IRB U19 Rugby World Cup in South Africa in March 2004. It was later discovered that John had died of an undetected heart problem that could have been prevented had doctors been aware of it.

The High Performance Manager of the Academy and NI Patron of CRY, Gary Longwell said

"The Ulster sports community has become acutely aware of Sudden Death Syndrome in the past few years following the tragic and untimely deaths of two top young sports stars - Cormac McAnallen (Tyrone GAA) and John McCall (Irish U19 Rugby). I am pleased that the Ulster Rugby Academy has introduced testing for all athletes and I am hoping this will help publicise CRY's campaign as it attempts to raise awareness, support screening programs and medical research and vitally counsel the families affected by instances of tragic loss."

For more information on CRY please visit www.c-r-y.org.uk/