Covid-19 had "more impact than I had hoped" for Marianne Vos, who's yet to return to competition

Marianne Vos had been targeting Paris-Roubaix earlier this spring, however a positive for Covid-19 brought to the ground what was an only three-day spring campaign.

Yet to return to the peloton, Vos has talked about the past month in an interview with CyclingWeekly where she details the effect it had on her body: "I didn't get very sick so I thought I would get rid of it quickly, but did have more impact than I had hoped. At the time when I had to withdraw from Roubaix, I had no symptoms yet. I then did develop some symptoms but I wasn’t that sick — throat soreness and a persistent cold mostly. But it lingered," she said.

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"The moment I picked up the bike again, I noticed that when it came to endurance especially, it really had an impact. So I’ve had to patiently start training everything back up again, which we as athletes aren’t always very good at," Vos added.

After a second place at last year's debut, in which the women's peloton got to ride the cobbles of northern France for the first time, she was set to be a main contender. The Veteran specifically has that race under eye, but will have lots of opportunities still for the rest of the year - including the new Tour de France Femmes.

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"In the past two years Corona has been among us, and you know that at some point you might have to deal with it yourself, but yeah, the timing was unfortunate. I admit that I was really disappointed that day," she said. "You tell yourself that it’s just a race, but at that moment it is, of course, also very frustrating when you’ve worked towards it..."

However, the 35-year old still keep a positive outlook towards the rest of the season, where she will be leading Jumbo-Visma. "I would have liked to have raced more this spring, but things don’t always go as planned. Luckily I have some time to rebuild my fitness and work toward the bigger goals," she added.

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