Wesley Kreder is recovering two weeks after suffering a cardiac arrest in late August.
The 32-year-old who races with Cofidis posted on social media about the incident in coordination with the team's press release about his condition.
"On the night of August 28 to 29, Wesley Kreder suffered a heart problem at his home. His wife and in-laws, present on site, provided him with first aid before he was quickly transferred to Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven where he was urgently admitted," Cofidis stated.
"The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster," Kreder wrote. "I am very grateful that I am still here, because of the quick actions of my wife and parents-in-law.
"Now I'm slowly recovering and seeing what the future will bring me."
Cofidis stated that Kreder was diagnosed with myocarditis - inflammation of the heart muscle - that can lead to cardiac arrest.
After the incident, Kreder stayed several days in the hospital under observation and continues to be monitored by a cardiologist and the Cofidis team doctors.
"I went to bed normally on August 28 and the next day I woke up in the hospital," Kreder said in the press release. "It was really strange to find myself there, wondering what had happened and why I had come to this.
"I stayed in the hospital for several days to undergo a battery of tests and recover well before returning home. Now I feel good, it's hard to think that I had a heart attack two weeks ago."
Cofidis said Kreder passed a series of tests in Eindhoven and that his condition is under control but "it is still too early to think about the rest of his career".
"Now is not the time to plan ahead but to recover well and enjoy, too. I am so happy to be alive," Kreder said.
Kreder is the first of two WorldTour pros to suffer serious health ailments in the past two weeks, with Nathan Vanhooydonck (Jumbo-Visma) more recently collapsing while driving and having to be resuscitated.
A 2022 study by the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai found that heart attacks have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic with the steepest rise in the 25-44 age group during the surge in cases of the Omicron variant (Yeo et al. Journal of Medical Virology, Volume 95, Issue 1, January 2023).
In Kreder's case, his ambition to return to the sport is being kept in check as doctors advised him to rest for a week or two.
