He wants to make rugby safer for future generations.
Steve Thompson will bequeath his brain to science.
World champion in 2003 with England, the former hooker wants by his gesture to advance research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain triggered following head trauma.
CTE is often diagnosed in athletes who have suffered head injuries but also in athletes who have suffered multiple concussions.
The former player of Brive announced and explained his choice to the English channel BBC on Thursday "I want to preserve the children of the people I love so that they do not have to go through what I went through.
He pursues.
It's up to our generation to come together so that researchers can develop better treatments and ways to make gambling safer.
"
Rugby World Cup winner Steve Thompson to donate brain for chronic traumatic encephalopathy research https://t.co/cJ1GhECfGG
- BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) September 23, 2021
If the symptoms of Steve Thompson, definitively withdrawn from the field since December 2011, correspond to a chronic traumatic encephalopathy, this disease is only detectable post-mortem.
After his death, his brain will go to the Concussion Legacy Project.
A foundation which acts for the prevention of the dangers of concussions and which bears the name of the former English footballer who died in 2002 as a result of an ETC detected after his death in 2014.
Read alsoConcussions: "I felt like I was on a boat," says Rémi Bonfils
In December 2020, Steve Thompson, 73 caps with the XV de la Rose, said in an interview with the Guardian, no longer have any memories of one of the greatest moments of his career.
“I don't remember winning the World Cup anymore.
»Reference to the coronation of the English, in 2003. A competition in which he had played every game.
At the end of 2020, around a hundred former players suffering from brain disorders had launched a collective complaint against World Rugby as well as the English (RFU) and Welsh (WRU) federations.
The members of this lawsuit pointed the finger at the instances for the bad care and the lack of protection against the risks incurred after concussions.