[Sport] Sports reporter Grant Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at World Cup, his wife says

[REFLX]

 
Grant Wahl, the American soccer reporter who collapsed and died while covering the World Cup in Qatar last week, died of an aortic aneurysm that ruptured, his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, said Wednesday.

“It’s just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason it happened at this point in time,” Gounder said on “CBS Mornings.”

In a longer statement, Gounder said an autopsy performed by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office determined he died from a “slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium.

“The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him,” she said.

Wahl, a longtime college basketball and soccer reporter for Sports Illustrated and for his own newsletter, collapsed while covering Friday’s Argentina-Netherlands match and was later declared dead. He was 49.

He had covered soccer for more than two decades, including 11 World Cups — six men’s, five women’s – and authored several books on the sport, according to his website.

His body was returned to the US on Monday for the autopsy, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

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