November 22, 1995
From the Bosten Globe:
AUTOPSY: GRINKOV WAS VICTIM OF HEART DISEASE
by the Associated Press
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - Olympic figure skating champion Sergei Grinkov's heart was a time bomb that exploded without warning, doctors said yesterday.
An autopsy showed the 28-year-old Russian died of a massive heart attack caused by a blocked artery and high blood pressure.
He had been practicing on the ice with his wife and partner, Ekaterina Gordeeva, when he was stricken. He apparently had another heart attack within 24 hours before he collapsed Monday, Dr. Francis Varga said.
He said there was no indication of steroids or any other form of drug or alcohol abuse.
"He was clearly in very good health except for this one problem," said Varga, who performed the preliminary autopsy. "The entire front half of his heart muscle and a part of the left side of his heart muscle were deprived of oxygen."
Varga said the problem would not have been picked up by a routine examination, only by a stress test.
"If he continued at all on any schedule, it was only a question of time," Varga said. "Unless his condition was discovered and he had a bypass, the probability of survival for him was remote. Many times in young people, the first sign of coronary artery disease is sudden death."
The autopsy revealed that Grinkov's left anterior artery, which feeds a major portion of the heart muscle, was virtually closed.
"His heart was enlarged, as athletes' hearts frequently are," Varga said. "But his heart was disproportionately enlarged, more than you would expect for an athlete" because of his history of hypertension.
Grinkov's father died four years ago of a heart attack in Moscow, where the skating star will be buried. No date has been set for the funeral. "Athletes are very tough; they cover things up," Varga said. "Men also don't like to complain about their pain, and that's a problem."
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