On this 2014 photo, sportswriter Grant Wahl works as a sideline reporter during halftime.
Andy Mead | YCJ | Icon Sportswire |Corbis | Getty Images
Grant Wahl, a longtime soccer sportswriter, died Friday in Qatar while covering the World Cup.
NPR national supervising editor Russell Lewis tweeted that Wahl was covering the Argentina-Netherlands quarterfinal match when he died.
Multiple news organizations reported Wahl collapsed within the press tribune and was tended to by paramedics.
U.S. Soccer said in its statement that the team was “heartbroken” over Wahl’s death.
“Fans of soccer and journalism of the best quality knew we could at all times count on Grant to deliver insightful and entertaining stories about our game,” the organization said.
The reason behind death was not immediately available.
In a post Dec. 5 on his personal website, Wahl said he felt sick and that medical personnel on-site on the World Cup told him he probably had bronchitis. He said he was given antibiotics.
“My body finally broke down on me,” he wrote. “Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and a lot of work can try this to you. What had been a chilly during the last 10 days become something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest tackle a recent level of pressure and discomfort.”
His wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, tweeted late Friday that the news got here as a “complete shock.”
“I’m so thankful for the support of my husband @GrantWahl’s soccer family & of so many friends who’ve reached out tonight,” she said.
Wahl was known for his work for Sports Illustrated and as a commentator on NPR. He wrote a well-received book about David Beckham’s foray into the U.S. soccer, titled “The Beckham Experiment.”
It was the primary Latest York Times Bestseller with soccer as the subject.
Sports Illustrated’s top editors said late Friday that he began there in 1996 and left to pursue independent projects in 2020.
“We’re shocked and devastated on the news of Grant’s passing,” SI’s co-editors in chief, Ryan Hunt and Stephen Cannella, said. “We were proud to call him a colleague and friend for 20 years. No author within the history of SI has been more obsessed with the game he loved and the stories he desired to tell.”
Wahl is from Mission, Kansas, and attended Princeton University as an undergraduate.
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