Incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in athletes under 35 years of age is
between 0.4 and 4.4 in 100,000. The highest mortality is seen in older
athletes (?35 years) who engage in running, mostly because of complications
of atherosclerotic coronary ischemic disease. Majority of European countries
are guided by European Society of Cardiology?s (ESC) pre-participation
screening (PPS) recommendations that include electrocardiography (ECG), while
in the United States of America the ECG is not a routine part of the PPS
examination. In Serbia, the ESC guidelines are being used, but there are no
references prescribed by the Ministry of Health. The authors of this study
believe that the national strategy for sport improvement should be
accompanied with clear and well defined PPS recommendations that could be
tenable in our health system.