THE Olympic Council of Malaysia’s (OCM) Medical and Anti-doping Committee chairman, Dr SS Cheema has questioned why national cyclist, Mohd Azizulhasni Awang was not advised to undergo a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screening by medical personnel.

Dr Cheema said nothing was carried out despite complaints of several major heart-related symptoms by the cyclist.

“At the level of a high performance athlete, having complaints of symptoms like feeling sleepy, pain (in the chest) are quite typical symptoms, no one even went to the next step,” he commented during a virtual press conference regarding Azizulhasni’s health situation, today.

Azizulhasni, 34, announced that he is currently recovering after undergoing open heart surgery for a rare heart condition known as anomalous aortic origin of right coronary artery (AAORCA) at the Epworth Richmond Hospital, Melbourne on April 21.

The life-threatening condition brings the risk of cardiac arrest and sudden death if not treated with corrective surgery immediately.

Azizulhasni explained that his rare condition could only be identified with sophisticated tests, and that his earlier electrocardiogram (ECG), echocardiogram and CT coronary angiogram examinations failed to detect the condition.

“I was very lucky that an MRI detected the issue. I was very healthy, didn’t have any health issues, I was competing and training, but I just had discomfort in my chest, so I thought it’s normal as an athlete because we deal with high level training.

“I would like to advise everyone, whether an average person or an athlete, we all need to do full health screening to ensure we don’t have any medical issues. I think it is very important for all athletes to do full screening to ensure they don’t have this rare condition because we never know,” he added.

The Olympian’s social media channel was flooded with messages from fans and well-wishers.

During last year’s Aidilfitri celebration, the Malaysian sports fraternity was shocked by the sudden death of national archer Haziq Kamaruddin.

The Health Ministry said a post-mortem revealed that Haziq died of complications arising from clogged heart blood vessels due to coronary artery atherosclerosis. – Bernama, May 1, 2022.