MaltaToday previous editions

MT 30 March 2016

Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/659044

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 19 of 23

maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2016 20 Sport SPORTTODAY CYCLING BOXING Belgian cyclist Daan Myngheer dies after heart attack in Criterium International BELGIAN cycling was plunged into mourning for the second time in two days when the Roubaix Lille Metropole team announced that rider Daan Myngheer had died in hospital in Corsica on Monday af- ter suffering a heart attack. The 22-year-old abandoned with 25km to go of the first stage of the race after falling ill and suffered a heart attack while en route to hos- pital in Ajaccio. Myngheer, who turned profes- sional in 2015, was put in an in- duced coma but passed away late on Monday night, his team an- nounced in a Facebook post. "It is with great emotion that we announce the death of Daan. He lost his last race after struggling as a great champion," read the statement. "All our thoughts, sincere will to his parents, his sister Fleur Emely as well as to the whole family. "Rest in Peace Champion." Myngheer's passing comes just a day after Antoine Demoitie died after being hit by a motorbike following a fall during the Gent- Wevelgem Classic. Daan Myngheer Eubank versus Blackwell fight should have been stopped - surgeon THE British middleweight title fight between Chris Eubank Jnr. and Nick Blackwell which left the latter fighter in an induced coma should have been stopped earlier, a leading neurosurgeon said. Blackwell, 25, collapsed in the ring after the fight was called off on Sat- urday because of swelling over his left eye in round 10. He was found to have a bleed on the brain and was placed in an in- duced coma in hospital in London where he is still heavily sedated. Surgeon Peter Hamlyn, who op- erated on Michael Watson when he suffered brain damage in a 1991 fight with Chris Eubank Snr., said medical procedures were followed properly but that the fight should have been stopped. "It was clearly a one-sided fight by the seventh or eighth round and it should have been stopped. He took too many uppercuts and he suffered a blitz," Hamlyn told Britain's Tele- graph newspaper. "It seemed insane for it to go on, because only one man was going to win the fight." The British Boxing Board of Con- trol was satisfied with how the bout was handled. "Every boxer who gets into a ring know the risks," BBC general secre- tary Robert Smith told BBC Radio 5 live. "We have everything in place as best we can. But we're never going to make it 100 percent safe." The incident drew parallels with the world title fight in 1991 after which Watson was left fighting for his life. Eubank Snr., 49, was in his son's corner on Saturday and urged him to avoid hitting Blackwell's head at the end of round eight. "If the referee doesn't stop it, I don't know what to tell you, but I will tell you this, if he doesn't stop it, and you keep beating him like this, one, he's getting hurt, two, if it goes to a decision, why hasn't he stopped the fight?," Eubank Snr. said. Watson, 51, spent 40 days in a coma and had six operations to re- move a blood clot, leaving him with brain damage and partially para- lysed. Writing in the Telegraph, he said Blackwell's injury took him "down memory lane in many senses". "Chris and Nick were involved in a very tough fight, and it was a very sad thing to see Nick hurt at the end and then to hear what has hap- pened to him after the fight," Wat- son wrote. "It was a real sense of deja vu as the story unfolded." Nick Blackwell receives medical attention during the fight against Chris Eubank Jnr.

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of MaltaToday previous editions - MT 30 March 2016