The lingering effects of COVID are playing havoc with many elite athletes, some taking up to four months to fully recover.
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Long-time Illawarra Cycling Club director of coaching Terry Doherty has noticed athletes are taking anywhere from 10-to-16 weeks to get over the illness and come back to their previous best times and power outputs.
"They feel well, they feel 100 per cent recovered but as soon as you put them under sporting load, or maximum load, they are down considerably, they are down 10-to-15 per cent," Doherty told the Mercury.
"In 50 years I've never seen an illness that takes so long to recover from. I'm 72 and I've been involved in bikes for 62 years and I've been coaching for 50 - I've never seen a virus or a flu or anything where the recovery is so slow.
"We measure and record cyclists' times and wattages when they return and both are consistently down.
"You get them up to 90 per cent but you can't get that extra 10 per cent, you can't get their peak."
In 50 years I've never seen an illness that takes so long to recover from.
- Illawarra Cycling Club director of coaching Terry Doherty
Mick Marshall, endurance coach for the cycling program at the Illawarra Academy of Sport (IAS), said not all cyclists took as long to recover from COVID-19.
"It really is a case-by-case basis," he said. "Some athletes are recovering really quickly and they are back to their best very quickly, other athletes have what I think they call Long COVID, where it takes them a really long time to recover.
"It has impacted some cyclists' recovery significantly, it is just case-by-case basis."
Marshall, also assistant endurance coach at NSW Institute of Sport, has seen how COVID affects athletes differently.
"I can give you examples of younger and older cyclists who compete at all different levels and they're recovering quite quickly from it, you wouldn't even know they're sick,'' he said.
"And there are others who have ongoing fatigue, some respiratory issues.
"From my perspective it varies from person to person, similar to the general public."
Doherty admitted that some riders who have or have yet to fully recover from COVID, would be 'no shows' this Sunday when the Illawarra Cycle Club runs the inaugural Barbara Wyles Classic.
The club was granted the license by Aus Cycling to conduct the first ladies-only handicap road race in NSW.
The race journey of 90 kilometres has attracted the cream of NSW's female road riders, including the Harlequin Club duo of Katie Banerjule and Klara Nash, who will start from the back mark.
Illawarra riders Chloe Heffernan, Lillie Pollock and Tahlia Dole will start from the second mark.
Doherty is confident the trio can use the windy conditions and combine together to go right through the field and catch the front group of riders, who will be given 35 minutes start over the 90km distance.
He added that 56-year-old World Masters champion Roberta Salvatori, known as the 'Iron Lady of Cycling', would take a lot of catching starting from the front of the pack.
The $6000 prize money for the event is on par with the men's Ken Dinnerville Handicap Classic, held on the same course at the conclusion of the women's race.
The Dinnerville has attracted a swag of entries from elite cyclists across NSW, including local Luke Britten and his Rauland teammate Hugh Sessini.
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