29 Apr 2014

Triathlete Vidal wakes from coma

7:29 am on 29 April 2014

Laurent Vidal, the French triathlete and fiancee of New Zealand Olympian Andrea Hewitt, has woken from an induced coma.

The 30-year-old Olympian suffered a heart attack while training near Montpellier last Friday.

Vidal was swimming at the Fonquerne Sète pool when he felt chest pain, before going into cardiac arrest.

He was revived and airlifted to a hospital in Montpellier, where he was placed in an induced coma.

This morning Vidal, who describes himself as 49 pecent Kiwi and 51 percent French, left a simple message on social media website Twitter, simply writing, "Hello world".

The news will come as a massive relief for his fiancee Hewitt, who rushed to France to be by his side, and the international triathlon community, who flooded Hewitt and Vidal with support following his hospitalisation.