ROME -- World fencing champion Vladimir Smirnov of the Soviet Union, stabbed through the left eye during a world fencing championships contest Monday, is being kept alive by life support systems, a hospital spokesman said Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Gemelli Polyclinic said, 'Smirnov's heart is still functioning, but other bodily functions are being maintained by artificial means.'
The state-run television service said Smirnov is 'clinically dead'.
A communique issued by the hospital Tuesday said Smirnov, 29, was in a deep coma, was not responding to treatment and had no brain reflexes. A spokesman added the hospital, where Pope John Paul II was taken after an attempt on his life last year, would not issue further bulletins unless there was a major change in Smirnov's condition.
'In medicine everything is possible, even though it is very, very improbable that there can be positive news about Smirnov,' a spokesman said.
Smirnov, gold medalist at the 1980 Olympics, was competing against Matthias Behr of West Germany, when Behr's foil broke and the jagged point pierced the Russian's protective helmet, pierced his eye socket and entered his brain.
