All athletes should have a full physical examination carried out by their GP to help prevent sudden death during exercise, according to a world expert on heart disease in sport.
Dr Paul Thompson, director of the Athletes Heart Programme at Hartford Hospital at the University of Connecticut also called for the mandatory training of sports coaches in the causes of sudden cardiac death and in the basic techniques of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
However, when asked about the need for automatic external defibrillators in training and sports grounds, Dr Thompson said: "There are so many athletes and so few sudden deaths that at $3,000 per machine it does not make economic sense to do this."
Dr Thompson told The Irish Times that in male athletes under 35 years, the incidence of sudden death during exercise was one in 200,000. In women the risk was much less, with research putting it at one in 800,000 in females who actively participated in sport.