Frode ANDERSEN and Gunn-Margit ANDREASSEN. Photo: seher.no

Wife Gunn-Margit Andreassen and Frode Andersen’s new year’s eve-2018 lost his elder son David, 13-year-old boy the morning of January 1, was found dead in his bed

– It was a happy and contented boy who went to bed. Everything was quite normal, – reads the statement of the parents. Four years ago, David had discovered a mild form of epilepsy. But it was not a big problem. He lived a normal life, loved football, played it in the yard and on the console, rooting for real Madrid. Perhaps, during sleep, with him there was a strong epileptic seizure.

More dreadful plot, perhaps, impossible to imagine. The couple left two young sons – eight-year-old Nicholas and five-year-old Elias. In their press release they said that they gave consent to the autopsy of David. It will give the answer to the question about the exact cause of death, but rather, all studies will take several months.

From Gunn-Margit Andreassen and Frode Andresen for two 13 medals of the Olympic games and world Championships. More titled in this pair is the spouse of Frode full set of Olympic medals and became the champion of the Games-2002 in the relay. Gunn-Margaret in 1998 and 2002 was respectively a bronze and a silver medal in the Olympics also in the relays.

Blossoming sports career and the novel of this pair came in the “Golden” age of biathlon. Then at the peak of fame was a great OLE Einar Bjoerndalen, Raphael Poiree, Sven Fischer… and Andreassen Andresen was quite noticeable, often stopped at the podium, but to the level of idols did not reach. Perhaps that is why their love story was not so raspiarili, as for example, the international biathlon unions Bjoerndalen and Nathalie Santer Italian or Poiret and Norwegian Liv-Grete, Selbrede. That’s the only difference from these pairs, the Norwegians have been living together for 18 years and raising their three children…

David was born on 29 Dec 2004. In honor of this event Andresen came out at the start of the first new year of the world Cup in Oberhof with a pacifier in his mouth. The race was for the Norwegian very good – he didn’t commit any mistake and got on the podium. Then it seemed that everything goes in the best way possible…

I really like to be a father, said Andresen in an interview with Norwegian portal SH a few years ago. Three wonderful son – the best thing I did, except that he was a top athlete. David and I often play chess. He can sit and watch the play of Magnus Carlsen five hours straight. He feels in himself the ability for the game and strives to become a champion.

After his retirement the couple Andresen-Andreassen (by the way, they were never married) settled in an old Villa near the town of Hønefoss. A couple of years with his own hands rebuilt and reconstructed the building, making it ideal for a large family. Gunn-Margit worked in the town a real estate agent, while Frode major part of the time.

Prize money for 50 podiums on the world Cup allows me not to worry about the economy, said Andresen. – In addition, I successfully “weld” on the stock market during the 2008 crisis.

– The birth of our children, Gunn-Margit took the hit, he continued the Norwegian. – I was never home. But now I deal with children a lot more. When children are busy in school, we go to the woods, digging snow caves, play football, find a lot of boyish fun… We run on skis in the garden, but not interested in competitions in skiing.

Interestingly, for more than 20 years of marriage, Frode and Gunn-Margit has not found time to officially get married.

– We don’t need a holiday and have never been romantics, explained Andresen. – If we lived a hundred years ago, maybe things would be different.

Medical studies show that the risk of death in patients with epilepsy is about two to three times higher than in General. The directly death from seizures is extremely rare. The seizures in epilepsy usually end spontaneously, without medical intervention. Significantly more often in patients with epilepsy there can be “sudden death syndrome”, which amounts to 17 percent among all causes of death in epilepsy. In this case, the patient dies out of the attack, all of a sudden, and death occurs within a few minutes.

In recent years, we received evidence that the most likely cause of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy patients is cardiac arrhythmia. Studies show that death often occurs with no witnesses, at night and without timely assistance. Often to save a life, it is enough just to change the body position of the patient.

Natalia MARYANCHIK, Sport-Express