Multiple South African champion and current African champion, Mariske Strauss, has announced that she has been diagnosed with a heart condition and will be taking a break from racing. The popular XCO specialist, who was planning to challenge for the win at next month’s Absa Cape Epic, made the announcement in her blog post on Monday morning.
By Sean Badenhorst
Strauss (31) is one of South Africa’s most successful mountain bike racers and has been racing professionally since 2013, contesting a number of UCI XCO World Cup events each year as well as the annual UCI World Championships. She has finished second overall three times at the Absa Cape Epic and was preparing to go all out for the win at the 2023 edition, teamed up with compatriot, Candice Lill.
Strauss endured a difficult 2021 and 2022. In January 2021 she struggled with illness and in March that year she sustained concussion from a crash. In 2022 she suffered a fractured hip in a crash, but managed to recover in time for the Commonwealth Games, only to be prevented from leaving the country with the rest of the South African team due to a positive test for Covid-19. She was able to recover somewhat and contested a few rounds of the lesser known UCI XCE Series, where she was successful and which helped end her year on a more positive note.
After having not started at Round 1 of the 2023 XCO SA Cup Series in Stellenbosch 10 days ago and then withdrawing from defending her title with Lill at the 2023 Tankwa Trek stage race, which started last Thursday, Strauss posted some updates on her Instagram stories in the past week indicating that she was undergoing medical testing. On Monday, she published a post on her blog to reveal the diagnosis:
At the start of this year, after I fell ill with another Covid infection, it all become too much. I was convinced something was wrong, as I have been saying for the better part of 1.5 years. I had to find out what was going on. This time I thankfully got to the right people at the right time, the best way I can describe it is divine intervention.
So down to the bottom line, the biggest and most important finding was that I have been diagnosed with Myocarditis. To those that are not medically inclined this in short means inflammation of your heart, and one of the reasons why so many young athletes are dropping like flies on the sports fields. I was shocked and relieved and had a whole mix of emotions at once.
Read Strauss’s full blog post here.
Strauss, a five-time South African Champion and four-time Continental Champion, indicated that she will focus on recovery and will likely not be racing for at least the next six months.
Follow Strauss on Instagram for updates on her progress.
