Former Olympic committee chief hospitalised, in 'very bad' condition

AFP - Former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, has been admitted to a Barcelona hospital suffering from severe heart trouble and his prognosis is "very bad", a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.
   
"He is suffering from acute coronary insufficiency and is prognosis is very bad," a spokesman for Barcelona's Quiron Hospital told AFP.
   
Samaranch was head of the IOC from 1980 to 2001. Only Pierre de Coubertin, the "father" of the modern Olympics and IOC chief from 1896 to 1925, has held the post longer.
   
In recent years he was a key part of Madrid's failed bids to hold the Olympics in 2012, which London eventually won, and 2016, which went to Rio de Janeiro.
   
Samaranch has been hospitalized several times in recent years, most recently in Monaco in 2009 after he fainted.
   
He was hospitalised in Lausanne, Switzerland for "extreme fatigue" on July 17, 2001, his 81st birthday, shortly after he stepped down as IOC head and in Barcelona in 2007 for high blood pressure.