An Olympic hopeful met with other athletes to promote awareness of cardiac risk.

Former Croydon school boy and discus thrower Lawrence Okoye joined other Olympic hopefuls at the parliamentary reception on October 12.

The Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) event raised the debate about the importance of screening young athletes at ‘grass roots’ level.

Lawrence has a strong affinity with CRY after 16-year-old Oluwatobi Adeyemi, who was at Lawrence’s former school Whitgift, died suddenly earlier this year.

The 20-year-old has already been tipped for gold at the London 2012 Olympics.

He has achieved a huge amount including breaking a senior British record, a world-age record, winning an Under-23 European gold medal and with a throw of 67.63m earning himself a fourth-place ranking among the world's best discus throwers this season.

Professor Sanjay Sharma, CRY’s consultant cardiologist and newly-appointed cardiologist for the 2012 Olympics, addressed the audience of MPs and families who had been affected by the tragic condition, young sudden cardiac death.

He said “Cardiac screening for these conditions is a very specialist area of medicine and screening of athletes is right at the cutting edge of this challenge.

“It is vital that those carrying out the cardiac screening of these wonderfully fit and healthy young people have an expert understanding of an athletes’ heart as they can often look and behave differently to that of a non-athlete due to the intensive pressure and level of endurance they are constantly put under.”