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Samaranch hospitalised with severe heart trouble
AFP
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) -- Former International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, has been admitted to a Barcelona hospital suffering from severe heart trouble and his prognosis is "very bad", a hospital spokesman said yesterday.
"He is suffering from acute coronary insufficiency and his prognosis is very bad," a spokesman for Barcelona's Quiron Hospital told AFP.
In a statement, the hospital's chief of internal medicine Rafael Esteban said Samaranch was under "intensive observation".
Samaranch was head of the IOC from 1980 to 2001. Only Pierre de Coubertin, the "father" of the modern Olympics and IOC chief from 1896 to 1925, has held the post longer.
He is credited with commercialising the Olympics by allowing athletes to embrace professionalism.
Samaranch is now an honorary life president of the body which runs the Olympics and remains active in Spanish sports administration.
In recent years he was a key part of Madrid's failed bids to hold the Olympics in 2012, which London eventually won, and 2016, which went to Rio de Janeiro.
"I know that I am very near the end of my time. I am 89 years old," he said in October 2009 before asking the IOC members for the honour of hosting the 2016 Games in Spain during Madrid's bid presentation in Copenhagen.
Samaranch has been hospitalised several times in recent years, most recently in Monaco in 2009 after he fainted.
He was hospitalised in Lausanne, Switzerland for "extreme fatigue" on July 17, 2001, his 81st birthday, shortly after he stepped down as IOC head and in Barcelona in 2007 for high blood pressure.
AFP
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) -- Former International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, has been admitted to a Barcelona hospital suffering from severe heart trouble and his prognosis is "very bad", a hospital spokesman said yesterday.
"He is suffering from acute coronary insufficiency and his prognosis is very bad," a spokesman for Barcelona's Quiron Hospital told AFP.
In a statement, the hospital's chief of internal medicine Rafael Esteban said Samaranch was under "intensive observation".
Samaranch was head of the IOC from 1980 to 2001. Only Pierre de Coubertin, the "father" of the modern Olympics and IOC chief from 1896 to 1925, has held the post longer.
He is credited with commercialising the Olympics by allowing athletes to embrace professionalism.
Samaranch is now an honorary life president of the body which runs the Olympics and remains active in Spanish sports administration.
In recent years he was a key part of Madrid's failed bids to hold the Olympics in 2012, which London eventually won, and 2016, which went to Rio de Janeiro.
"I know that I am very near the end of my time. I am 89 years old," he said in October 2009 before asking the IOC members for the honour of hosting the 2016 Games in Spain during Madrid's bid presentation in Copenhagen.
Samaranch has been hospitalised several times in recent years, most recently in Monaco in 2009 after he fainted.
He was hospitalised in Lausanne, Switzerland for "extreme fatigue" on July 17, 2001, his 81st birthday, shortly after he stepped down as IOC head and in Barcelona in 2007 for high blood pressure.
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