Marianne Vos forced to delay season start due to injury

Former multiple World Champion Marianne Vos is likely to miss the planned start of her road season after failing to recover from injury. In a blog on her Rabo-Liv team website, the 27 year old admitted she has been struggling with the problem since December.

Her team manger, Koos Moerenhout, told Cycling Weekly some weeks ago that Vos was due to begin her road season at Strade Bianche, but with this race only 10 days away, that target must now be beyond her. Though not confirmed, the issue, which hampered the second part of her cyclo-cross season, was rumoured to be a hamstring injury.

It was clear the eight-times cyclo-cross champion was not herself at the final CX World Cup race in Hoogerheide in January, where she finished 12th. However, despite that uncharacteristic performance, she still managed to finish third the following week at the World Championships at Tábor in the Czech Republic, behind team mate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot.

In her blog, Vos explains she has not trained properly since the CX Worlds and does not know when she will return to full training.

“For me as an athlete it's not easy to stay calm,” she writes, “but I know that it's necessary to build on my fitness step by step. Full recovery from this injury takes a while, so I have to be patient. At the moment I can't say when I will return to competition, because I can't take risks in my recovery.”

The problem could also severely dent her 2015 Road World Cup ambitions. Vos lost the title she had held since 2009 to Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead last year, and is unlikely to be fit for the opening event, the Ronde van Drenthe in the eastern Netherlands, in a little over two weeks. With the following two races of the 10-round competition within three weeks of that, she is unlikely to be competitive, if she rides at all.