Patrick Avery inquest: Call for athlete testing

Patrick Avery

The family of a 21-year-old Rotorua cyclist who died after a race has called for all high performance athletes to undergo mandatory heart testing.

Patrick Avery was nearing the end of a 15-minute sprint race at the Eastgate Industrial Park in Rotorua on December 4 last year when he fell from his bike.

An off duty fireman and members of the public performed CPR but he died later that night in hospital. A post-mortem revealed his cause of death as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy - a common cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.

Patrick, a national cycling representative, was well known within the Rotorua community with close to 1000 people attending his funeral.

At an inquest into his death today his older brother Clinton, a professional cyclist based in Europe, said he believed cyclists should have to undergo cardiac testing before they were given a Bike NZ licence to compete.

Clinton said all riders on the European circuit had to be tested at the start of each season and were not allowed to race until they got the go ahead from doctors, he said.

"I do think talking to my team doctors and cardiologists . . . that they would have definitely picked up what Patrick had, even in the early stages."

Patrick's sister, Monique, an international mountain biker and Xterra triathlete, said mandatory testing was a "wicked idea".

She said Patrick had more skill than her and Clinton put together and could have been the best of them all if he had trained as hard as they did.

She said in a race Patrick would "smash" everyone for the first couple of minutes then would often "just hit a wall".

"Sometimes he would have to stop and catch his breath."

Monique said Patrick refused to go to the doctor, even though he "wasn't 100 per cent" in the weeks leading up to his death.

She said many athletes wouldn't get checked out unless it was made compulsory.

"You tend to push it [health issues] under the rug and think you are fine . . . there's training to do."

Patrick's mother, Maryann, said she was working with Sport New Zealand to raise awareness of the need for high performance athletes to be tested.

She said she had taken Patrick to the doctor a couple of times with breathing difficulties and he seemed to have more problems with recovery than her other children.

GPs needed to be aware high performance athletes had to be treated with more care, she said.

Patrick's father, Murray, said sport had changed since his days as a wrestler and professionalism meant there were more demands on athletes.

"People are pushing themselves further because the end result can be a lot grander."

He said in his view any national level or academy athlete should be tested.

Coroner Wallace Bain adjourned the inquest to further investigate the issues raised by the Avery family.