Kemoy Campbell Retires 7 Months After Collapse at Millrose Games – runnersworld.com

• Jamaican Olympian Kemoy Campbell announced his retirement from professional track and field in an Instagram post on Friday.
• The news comes nearly seven months after Campbell collapsed on the track at the Millrose Games in February while pacing the men’s 3,000-meters race.
• While Campbell will no longer be competing, he hopes to stay involved in the sport.

Nearly seven months after his heart stopped while pacing the 3,000-meters at the Millrose Games, Jamaican Olympian Kemoy Campbell has announced his retirement from professional track and field.

“It’s with a heavy heart, or half of one rather, [that] I must say goodbye to the sport. I will no longer be competing. I have given my all to this sport,” the Jamaican Olympian wrote on Instagram Friday. “It has taken me to places I have never dreamt of going. It gave a shy boy from a rural area in Jamaica the opportunity to prove himself to the world.”

Campbell earned five national titles in Jamaica and claimed a 10th-place finish in the 5K at the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London. An All-American at the University of Arkansas, Campbell had been training with the Reebok Boston Track Club.

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As he stated on social media, the retirement announcement followed instructions from his doctors who informed him that he should no longer compete due to his heart condition since the collapse.

“I was told today that I shouldn’t compete again or this incident will happen again, but that will not stop me from supporting and helping this sport and my team any way I can. So it’s farewell to competing,” he wrote.

On February 9, Campbell led the runners through the first 1K of the 3K in New York City when he began to slow and grimace in pain. Then he suddenly collapsed on the inside of the railing at which point, event organizers and medical professionals rushed to his side. He was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center where he was treated over 17 days and had an internal defibrillator implanted into his chest, according to BBC Radio.

While the 28-year-old distance runner doesn’t remember the incident, he was told by doctors that his “heart stopped and I basically died,” according to an interview with BBC Radio in March. Doctors were ultimately unable to find a cause.

According to the Jamaica Gleaner, Campbell knew it was time to hang up his spikes when doctors informed him that he could only run for 20 minutes and that his heart rate should not exceed 164 beats per minute. But Campbell is choosing to stay involved in the sport in a different way. He would like to stay on the Reebok Boston Track Club as a coach in training while raising awareness for heart disease in his native country.

“I really didn’t expect to be out of the sport this early, but at the same time, I have to choose life over everything,” Campbell told the Jamaica Gleaner.

Contributing Writer Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer living in Chicago.