Singleton eyes training return year after heart attack — SkimNews
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- Jack Singleton suffered a heart attack in September 2025 aged 29 while training at Gloucester, having played just one Prem Cup game in the 2025-26 campaign; tests later revealed a hereditary condition called LPA, which left his LDL cholesterol extremely elevated and caused narrowings and blockages in his arteries.
- Singleton attributed the hereditary condition to his father, who died of a heart attack aged 56, and said diet and exercise cannot manage it — he has been treated at Gloucester Royal and St George's Hospital in London.
- Singleton, who joined Gloucester in 2020 and earned 7 England caps (most recently in 2022), was given a rolling contract from June 2026 to continue rehabilitation at Kingsholm, but Gloucester signed Wales hooker Dewi Lake in December for the 2026-27 season.
- Singleton said he shares cardiologists with Christian Eriksen and pointed to Eriksen, Daley Blind and Tom Lockyer as high-profile footballers who returned to elite sport after cardiac incidents, though he noted finding rugby players with the same condition was much harder.
- Singleton said his biggest question was whether he would be allowed to return, but now feels in a better place medically than a year ago and is targeting full contact training in the next few weeks before searching for a new club to take him on.
- Gloucester were transparent that they could not wait until May-August to determine Singleton's fitness and needed to sign a replacement, which Singleton said he fully understood.
Why it matters: Singleton is a capped England international with 75 Gloucester appearances still aged 29, so a confirmed medical clearance to return to contact training would put a proven Premiership hooker back on the market — a rare availability given how few front-rowers clear cardiac hereditary diagnoses. His split with Gloucester was driven not by form but by the club's need for certainty, illustrating how cardiac red-flag cases force rugby clubs to plan squad replacement years before a player's prime should end.
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