LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A player collapsed and died while training with his Bolivian top-flight club Real Santa Cruz on Friday.
Real Santa Cruz said Colombian striker Guillermo Denis Beltrán died of respiratory arrest. He was 24.
Beltrán’s teammates said he felt nauseous and fell to the ground shortly after. Club doctors called an ambulance after their first efforts to revive him.
“He was training as usual and then he collapsed. They tried to resuscitate him but he died as he was being moved to a clinic,” Real Santa Cruz director Adolfo Soria Galvarro said.
The club is in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a city 850 kilometers (530 miles) east of the capital La Paz.
Fernando Costa, the president of the Bolivian Football Federation, expressed his condolences and said it will give support to the club and to Beltrán’s family. Costa also said there will be an investigation.
Beltrán scored one goal in 21 matches for Real Santa Cruz in the Bolivian championship. He came to the club last year from Paraguay’s Rubio Ñu. He started his career at Colombia’s Atletico Nacional.
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