As much as he would like it, Nathan Van Hooydonck (28) realizes all too well that professional cycling is a thing of the past for him a month and a half after his cardiac arrest. “But thanks to the birth of my son, I hardly had time to be unhappy,” he tells NOS.
In mid-September, Nathan Van Hooydonck was the victim of a car accident. The rider had become unwell while sitting in his car. A month and a half after his cardiac arrest, he returns to NOS on that fateful day.
“I am happy that I can sit here and continue with my life in a different way,” says the former Team Jumbo – Visma cyclist. “It’s been exciting.”
Van Hooydonck himself has no memory of that day, but he does know that he was very lucky that the accident happened close to a police station.
“All the people who had to be there to keep me alive were there. One went to get an AED, someone else did the chest compressions and someone else gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“It was a godsend that they were there. If one of those three care providers had taken a day off that day, things could have looked different.”
If I fall in the run-up to a bunch sprint or in a hectic final, it is not only dangerous for me, but also for the cyclists around me.
Nathan Van Hooydonck
His wife was told “not to hope for anything” when Van Hooydonck was carried into the ambulance, but it turned out not to be that serious. After being in an artificial coma for a while, he woke up that same day.
“Can I still cycle? That was the first thing I thought of,” he says. “I felt that I could still move my arms and legs. When I asked my father, he replied: “We’ll see about that”. Then I knew it would no longer be possible.”
With an internal defibrillator (ICD) – “my insurance if things go wrong again,” says Van Hooydonck – professional cycling is no longer possible.
“If I fall in the run-up to a bunch sprint or in a hectic final, it is not only dangerous for me, but also for the cyclists around me. I cannot control those circumstances. A return to the peloton is too dangerous.”
Van Hooydonck: “Maybe I trained too hard?”
Nathan Van Hooydonck is not the first cyclist who recently had to stop due to heart problems. Sonny Colbrelli, Sep Vanmarcke and Heinrich Haussler, among others, preceded him.
“My right ventricle is too big,” said Van Hooydonck. “As a result, a heart rhythm disorder developed. In December there was nothing visible during a check, but it deteriorated quickly.”
The cardiologists have no explanation, neither does Van Hooydonck. “Maybe I trained too hard? I’ve always asked a lot of myself, but I don’t think that’s the reason.”
Is it due to the way of racing in modern cycling? “The finals are opened earlier. While we used to drive two hours at the limit, it is now three hours. In sometimes very tough conditions, that is not healthy.”
“It is difficult to say whether it has anything to do with that. It is striking that there are more cases now that the way of racing has changed.”
He doesn’t know yet what Van Hooydonck wants to do now. With the birth of his son Alessio, he has enough distraction for the time being. “I hardly had time to be unhappy. My greatest happiness was in my arms a few hours later.”
