England’s most-capped player Ben Youngs has revealed he underwent heart surgery after collapsing during an open training session.
Leicester scrum-half Youngs says he is “on the mend” and hopes to be fit for the new season which begins in mid-September.
Youngs (34) had been diagnosed with arrhythmia and supraventricular tachycardia, which is a type of irregular heartbeat that causes the heart’s upper chamber to beat fast or erratically.
He had a two-hour operation in Birmingham following the episode while training with Leicester earlier this year.
“You know when we joked around on the pod quite a while back, and we had this open training session at Leicester, and I said I was doing fitness, and basically I collapsed,” Youngs said on the For The Love Of Rugby podcast he co-hosts with Tigers colleague Dan Cole.
“Well, not collapsed, but I had to stop and lay down as my heart was pounding away, and the rain was hitting me in the face, and I sort of rolled my head to the side and looked at all these admiring fans – 30 of them – that were all packed out in the main stand at Leicester.
“And I thought: ‘This is it, this is how I’m gonna go’.
“I basically had a few of these episodes and I’ve had it my whole life. And it can just kind of spontaneously happen at any stage of your life or career. And so I have had it my whole life, unknown to me.”
Youngs, who won 127 caps before retiring from Test rugby after the 2023 World Cup, added: “I’ve had a couple of episodes throughout my career but have always been checked up and we get the best medical care.
There is a 90 per cent success rate, so I should not suffer now. My ticker should be all good
“The club have been amazing, as they so often are with anything like this. I got checked the first time it happened, (then) a second time it happened again.
“I am on the mend, I am recovering. I’ll be fine for the start of the season.
“There is a 90 per cent success rate, so I should not suffer now. My ticker should be all good and it won’t suddenly kick in and go mental.”
