the serious “realization” that prompted Alexi Balès to hang up his crampons
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A few days ago, Alexi Balès announced that he was ending his retirement. He took the opportunity to announce his conversion to wine.
Alexi Balès attributed having made this decision because he could not see himself leaving for a new season with increasingly reduced playing time, Stade Toulousain putting him after Antoine Dupont obviously, but also after young players.
But there is another reason that motivated the scrum-half to end his career. And that’s a much bigger and more serious reason: concussions. In an interview with Actu, Alexi Balès admitted to having experienced a few absences following the concussions he suffered. Some concerns from her family pushed her to say stop.
The only thing that held me back was the concussions. For some time, I played much less in Toulouse, so I did not do too much. But I still suffered many concussions during my career and in the end, I feel it in my daily life. Often, my wife calls out to me and says, “Are you okay? Are you with us here or not?”, because I sometimes miss a few things. I had a real awareness, because I didn’t want to find myself in 5 years with Alzheimer’s disease (…) I told myself that it was time to stop as long as I was in good health and that I still had all my head to enjoy my child and my family. This was a criterion that pushed me to hang up my crampons, before it was too late.
A wise decision on the part of the scrum half, which thus avoids potential serious consequences at the cerebral level. Concussions have been a hot topic in the world of rugby lately. And some players, sometimes internationals, may not know when to stop before playing the game or the season too many.
to summarize
A few days ago, Alexi Balès announced that he was ending his retirement. Having announced that seeing his increasingly reduced playing time was difficult to live with, the scrum-half also admitted that he was stopping to avoid serious consequences after concussions.