Bosworth, who finished seventh in the men’s 20-kilometre walk at the Doha 2019 World Athletics Championships, contracted coronavirus in March.

Bosworth announced on Twitter that he had decided to take a short break prior to beginning winter training, ahead of preparing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games next year.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live that he had attempted to resume light training in May, but the effects of coronavirus flared up.

The 30-year-old said he did not feel "back to normal" until August.

"Even gardening was taking me out of breath," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"A few weeks earlier, I was in the form of my life, I'd set back-to-back British records and I just couldn't believe something could take me down as quickly as it did.

"I did get back to training in May and went too hard, I really pushed my body, and it all just flared back up like the effects of any virus, neural effects, joint pain, that sort of thing, it all came back.

"We really did take it slowly the first week or so and it felt like it was fine.

"But then as the days went on, and I built up training - and we're just talking about training once a day, I usually train twice a day - and by the end of a few weeks of that it was back to square one and literally putting one foot in front of another was so painful."

Bosworth had begun the year in impressive fashion by setting a British 5km race walk record of 18 minutes 20.97sec back in February.

A week later Bosworth achieved a British record 39:10 over 10km.

Bosworth, who secured a silver medal at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in the 20km event, will be looking to compete at a second Olympic Games next year.

The Briton placed sixth on his Olympic debut at Rio 2016 in the men’s 20km event.

While many recover quickly from COVID-19 - especially athletes, who tend to be in good health - some experts have expressed concern that the long-term impacts of the illness remain unknown.