Who will win the Rugby World Cup 2011 ?

Sad news...

Springbok legend has Lou Gehrig's disease

July 28, 2011 - 7:04PM

Former Springbok skipper and Rugby World Cup-winning scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen has been told he may only have a couple of years to live after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Doctors have suspected since May that the 40-year-old suffered from a motor neuron disease.

After visiting Erik Pioro, a neuromuscular specialist in Cleveland, Ohio, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, The Beeld newspaper said.

"Dr Pioro confirmed that Joost does indeed suffer from ALS, which gives him an 80 per cent chance to live between two and five years," Van der Westhuizen's South African doctor Jody Pearl told the paper.

The disease is incurable and almost always fatal. The illness gradually leads to paralysis, speech and swallowing difficulties and problems with breathing.

Sufferers usually die within three to five years. British scientist Stephen Hawking is one of the more famous people with the disease, which strikes one to three people out of every 100,000.

Van der Westhuizen shares the record as leading try scorer for South Africa with winger Bryan Habana (38) and also captained the 1999 World Cup team, retiring after playing in the 2003 tournament.

© 2011 AFP

lardbucket wrote:You utter, utter, utter b@stard ... they've got enough to contend with already, surely?

**giggle**

Sad news...

aye!

JGK wrote:Sad news...

Springbok legend has Lou Gehrig's disease

Could be worse...he could have had Fraser Gehrig's disease which consists mainly of being crap ugly and pissing on bars when drunk...

The disease is incurable and almost always fatal. The illness gradually leads to paralysis, speech and swallowing difficulties and problems with breathing.

Geez, sounds awful. . Best of luck to him.

South Africa getting hammered by the All Blacks. I reckon the move to rest their top players will backfire. Momentum is such a big part of success in sport. It's also making the Tri-Nations a bit of a two horse race.

Maybe Fiji or Samoa should be the third nation in this comp. They might be more competitive than the Boks!

What the?

The Boks have deliberately sent a b-team for the away games this year.

The Fijians were hammered by the All Blacks b-team a fortnight ago.

Maybe you should stick to quoting other people's opinions.

The Boks will play their full strength team at home though, I think.

By then, all their 'injured' players who couldn't travel will be well again.

Henry wrote:The Boks will play their full strength team at home though, I think.

Of course they will. Their fans/sponsors will demand full value for the money they hand across.

Meanwhile, SA rugby treat their SANZAR business partners with contempt.