Olympic Bobsledder Who Killed Himself Likely Had C.T.E.

[Demovictory9]

Olympic Bobsledder Who Killed Himself Likely Had C.T.E.
Pavle Jovanovic, who represented the United States at the 2006 Olympics, is believed to be the first athlete in a sliding sport to be found with a disease caused by repeated brain traumas.

A former Olympic bobsledder who killed himself last year had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., researchers concluded, the same degenerative brain disease that has been found in former football players and other athletes who participated in violent contact sports.

Pavle Jovanovic hanged himself in his family’s metal works shop in central New Jersey in May 2020. He was 43. He is believed to be the first bobsledder and the first athlete in an Olympic sliding sport to be found with C.T.E. The debilitating brain disease results from multiple head traumas and can cause severe brain degeneration, often long before the stage of life when the wider population experiences brain disorders, such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

The finding of C.T.E. in Jovanovic’s brain is likely to send shock waves through a sport that is just beginning to understand the dangers of what participants refer to casually as “sled head.” Athletes have long used the term to describe the exhausted fog, dizziness and headaches that even a routine run can cause.

Jovanovic was the third elite North American bobsledder to kill himself since 2013. In recent years, an increasing number of current and retired athletes in sliding sports, especially bobsled and skeleton, have said they suffer chronically from many of the same symptoms that plague football players and other contact sport athletes. They deal with constant headaches, a heightened sensitivity to bright lights and loud noises, forgetfulness and psychological problems.

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Catastrophic crashes causing athletes to slam into the ice underneath overturned sleds are not uncommon. But a combination of speed and vibrations, especially in the tight turns of a sliding track, can damage the brain even when crashes do not occur, experts say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/sports/olympics/bobsled-cte-concussions-sledhead.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-decay-decay-02&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=974521482&impression_id=0fde33e6-9986-11eb-9438-1981ddbf3729&index=6&pgtype=Article&pool=pool%2F91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1&region=footer&req_id=900699654&surface=most-popular-story&variant=1_bandit-all-surfaces-decay-decay-02

[Budi]

1. Cripe, that's a tragic story.

Rest in peace ~

[brewens]

2. I've watched those guys banging their heads, and when there is an accident and they either flip

all the way over or just part way slamming into the wall, they have to take a big hit.

[WhiteTara]

3. shaken baby syndrome on steriods!

wow. I'm sorry for them to do something that they like so much that destroys them.

[jmowreader]

4. We will probably eventually find...

...that EVERY sport can cause CTE, including supposedly low-impact sports like golf.

Sick thought...what if Trump is the way he is because all those golf and tennis shots caused his pea-size brain to beat itself apart on the inside of his head?

[Demovictory9]

5. maybe in gymnastics with the landing

[jmowreader]

6. And in tennis with the sudden stops...

...bicycle racing with riding on rough roads, running with the impact of your feet on the pavement...basically, anything you do that jars the head repeatedly.