Rome (AFP) - Sofia Goggia, the super-G World Cup holder, does not yet know when she would be able to start her season after contracting two viral infections in the summer.

“I can’t make any plans because I need time to recover from the effects of the viruses,” Goggia, who is also a four-time World Cup downhill champion, said at an event organised by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

She said she fell ill on a training camp in South America after being bitten by an infected mosquito.

“I started feeling particularly severe, intense, and strange joint pain,” she said. “I couldn’t even climb the stairs.”

“I contracted the chikungunya virus, and, as a result, I also contracted parvovirus B19, which is a virus that’s very rare in adults because it usually only affects young children but it causes all these neurological symptoms and severe joint pain, along with this feeling of extreme fatigue.”

The women’s World Cup season is scheduled to open with the traditional giant slaloms on the glacier in Soelden, Austria, on October 24-25. The first downhill and super-G are in Beaver Creek, Colorado, on the weekend of December 11.

“There’s no treatment. I’m just waiting for it to pass. I’m past the acute phase. I’m in the residual phase, but it’s left me with a lot of lingering effects. Some days I feel better, and other days I wake up feeling completely drained. I just have to give it time,” she said.