I can't believe that in two weeks it will have been 15 years since the great Sergei Grinkov died of a massive heart sttack. I'm still in shock that such a great athlete could suddenly collapse from a heart attack. Even the doctors who did the autopsy were shocked at what they were finding. They found that he had the heart of a seventy-year-old, it was so diseased. Read here about the doctors' reaction at what they found:

nytimes.com . . .

nytimes.com . . .

They found, too, that he had severe osteo-arthritis in his spine. It was no wonder that no one persued his symptoms more aggresively. Nobody had any reason to think that such a big, strapping, otherwise perfectly healthy young guy who was one of the world's greatest athletes could possibly have anything wrong with his heart. In the above links, it said that if doctors had taken his symptoms-the enlarged heart, the extremely high blood pressure-he could have got the heart bypass surgery and other treatments he would have needed. Thus, he would still be alive.

katia said in her book "My Sergei-A Love Story" that just before the Lillehammer Olympics, she and Sergei had a complete physical check-up. After he had his heart attack, she went back to the doctor who administered a stress test and asked him, "Did you see anything wrong with his heart?". The doctor said he saw nothing wrong, other than that the heart was slightly enlarged. In those above links, it said that it was about that time that his blood pressure started to spike. The bottom number was consistently at 110. The other skaters said that that was likely due to nerves. However, a blood pressure that high is not just nerves.