England legend Ben Youngs recovering from heart surgery following collapse at training
England's Ben Youngs during a training session at Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, Surrey. Picture date: Tuesday February 7, 2023.
Leicester Tigers and former England scrum-half Ben Youngs has revealed that he had an operation on his heart after he collapsed during an open training session at his club.
The 34-year-old, who is his country’s most-capped player, said he is “on the mend” and hopeful of being fit for the start of the 2024/25 season which gets underway in mid-September.
Youngs had been diagnosed with arrhythmia and supraventricular tachycardia. The condition is a type of irregular heartbeat which causes the heart’s upper chamber to beat fast or erratically.
Two-hour operation
He underwent surgery which lasted for two hours in Birmingham following the incident while training with the Tigers 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 Leicester club-mate 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’.
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“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 retired from international rugby after last year’s Rugby World Cup in France, made 127 appearances for England and also played in two Tests for the British and Irish Lions.
‘We get the best medical care’
He added: “I’ve had a couple of episodes throughout my career but have always been checked up and we get the best medical care.
“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.”
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