Our series “Rugby, a sport on borrowed time”
For years, the debate on concussions and players’ health has agitated the microcosm without ever getting to the bottom of things. Even if this awareness has led to a change in the rules and a tightening of sanctions for head impacts, in recent years there have been serious accidents, premature career terminations, cases of early dementia… and even dead. The independent writer and journalist Ludovic Ninet, author of “Petit Éloge du rugby” and “The Cécillon Affair: Chantal, story of feminicide”, investigated for months. Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France exclusively delivers the fruit of this investigative work in a fascinating series in four episodes.
Concussions, early dementia, investigation into a sport “which will die if it does not change” Carl Hayman, victim of dementia: “People die from these pathologies” After the concussions, the nightmare…Nicolas Chauvin, this death which seems to no longer bother anyone
Cameron Pierce interrupts the conversation and takes his wallet from his pocket. He’s looking for his brain donor card. It makes him laugh. He donated his brain to science so that, if he died in an accident, we could look for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease triggered by repeated shocks to the head. This is a common practice in the United States. Cameron Pierce is an emblematic figure in France of players suffering from prolonged post-concussion syndrome. The Canadian, former second row of the Pau Section, ended his career in 2017, at the age of 24.
