Bulldogs AFLW captain Ellie Blackburn on playing elite sport after her bout of COVID-19

We've seen young, fit athletes bounce back after contracting COVID-19, seemingly unaffected — indeed, Nick Kyrgios won the Australian Open men's doubles crown having had the virus shortly before the Open started.

But Western Bulldogs' AFLW captain, Ellie Blackburn — who caught COVID-19 when it ripped through the club early in the season — was not one of those athletes.

«To start off with, I did everything I could to avoid getting COVID,» Blackburn said on the The W with Sharni and Sam podcast.

«I thought the only place I wouldn't get it was at footy, so I was pretty much just at home, footy and that was basically it.

»And then the place that I thought was the safest ended up being where everyone caught it."

Blackburn says her symptoms were varied.

«My head felt like it was going to explode, it was so hot and [I had] the headaches and all that came with it,» she says.

«But I didn't necessarily get the other symptoms, like a runny nose or cough or sore throat.

»Mine were the fatigue and the energy levels completely gone.

«There were days where I tried to get out of bed and then I just couldn't, so I just laid in bed all day.»

She experienced a kind of lingering «head-fog» in the period following her isolation, and when she returned to footy training, she realised it was a team-wide issue.

«There was a training session we had, the first one back, and the midfield group was together, and Burkey [head coach Nathan Burke] … he was having a firm conversation, providing some strong feedback,» Blackburn says.

«We were all standing there, with our hands on our hips, being like, 'Yeah, absolutely'.

»And then we walked away and not one of us really realised what was actually being said, because the brain fog was just really prominent at that