“Works for wear”: cardiologist Gultyaeva listed the dangers for Kamila Valieva’s “sports heart”

Young athletes who perform outstandingly at the Olympics put their cardiovascular system at risk. 15-year-old star Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva and the rest are shown to support the work of the heart, said Elena Gultyaeva, a senior researcher at the Tyumen Cardiology Center.

Commenting on the high-profile scandal with the discovery of the banned cardiac drug trimetazidine in Valieva’s doping test, the doctor explained that drugs are used in sports medicine that “improve physical tolerance, metabolic processes, help recover from illness or overload.” However, these are all “drugs with proven effectiveness, they are not included in the list of prohibited ones, they are prescribed by a doctor according to indications,” Gultyaeva emphasized.

The candidate of medical sciences recalled that the body of athletes works with great intensity, which is why they can end their careers at the age of 18-20 as having “used up the entire resource,” writes Doctor Peter.

According to the cardiologist, due to excessive loads, athletes experience powerful oxygen starvation, it is not by chance that the concept of a “sports heart” appeared. “There is a redistribution of blood for muscle work”, and “the heart has to work more and more often”; it is hypertrophied; changes in blood pressure, heart rate.

As a result, the overstrained hearts of young athletes sometimes simply fail. “It’s always a shock to everyone when young athletes suddenly die,” said the cardiologist. At the same time, not only the fact that “there was such a load that the body could not cope,” but also “underexamination” can lead to death.

Sports youth, even when they retire, should not allow themselves to be “lazy”, that is, to drastically reduce workloads, Gultyaeva warned.

Earlier, doctors warned that sports fans are unlikely to see Kamila Valieva at the next Olympic Games.

Recall that in the team figure skaters tournament, the Russians, including Valieva, won gold medals. After that, information appeared about a prohibited drug in the figure skater’s doping test. Despite this, CAS sports arbitration allowed Camila to compete in singles. She skated the short program best of all, but in the free program she fell on jumps and ended up only fourth. The Olympic champion was Russian Anna Shcherbakova, the silver medalist (with a world record) – her and Valieva’s compatriot Alexandra Trusova, the bronze – Japanese Kaori Sakamoto.