Indy Olympian Chloe Dygert 'wants to be known as one of the greatest cyclists of all time'
BROWNSBURG – An Instagram post by Canyon Bicycles features a photograph of Chloe Dygert with these words:
Just Get Me To The Start Line.
That has been the foremost issue for the 27-year-old Brownsburg cyclist, whose superwoman feats have contrasted to her human frailties.
Those who follow the sport even casually know about her crash in September 2020 at Imola, Italy, where a metal barrier sliced through her thigh and could have ended her career.
As grisly as that was, it is, well, a start point in a list deserving of a special wing at Mayo Clinic. She has had heart surgery, concussion, Epstein-Barr virus, COVID-19, and, most recently, Achilles and foot injuries.
That's just from cycling.
When she was a Brownsburg High School basketball player, she endured an ACL repair, broken nose, gashed eyebrows, torn labrum, sprained thumbs, stress fractures in shins and feet.
After all that, she remains a betting favorite to win a gold medal in road cycling’s individual time trial Saturday at the Paris Olympics. Odds list Dygert at -165, or a win probability of 62%.
The only Hoosier woman to win an individual gold medal at an Olympics was swimmer Lilly King of Evansville in the 100-meter breaststroke in 2016.
Dygert’s coach is Kristin Armstrong, who won a third Olympic gold in the time trial in 2016 — a day before her 43rd birthday. Coach and rider have collected wind data and studied the course, every grade change, every turn tangent.
In a news release from her Canyon//SRAM racing team, Dygert said she is seeing “power numbers I hadn’t seen in a very long time” during training in Boise, Idaho.
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“It shows again that it’s about trusting the process, believing the team around me, and trusting God’s plan,” her statement said. “There were times when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. But I’m here in Boise for the last preparation and feeling good.”
She has silver and bronze medals in team pursuit on the track from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021, respectively. Dygert will try for another medal in team pursuit following the time trial and Aug. 4 road race.
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There is logic behind the betting line.
When Dygert is healthy, she is historically good. When she is sick, she wins anyway.
In the 2019 World Championships at Yorkshire, England, she was effectively Secretariat at the 1973 Belmont Stakes. She won by 92 seconds, the biggest margin ever. Previously, the record was 71 seconds.
TV commentators reeled off a series of one-liners in describing the ride:
“Chloe is so fast, they need a helicopter to catch her.”
“She is officially destroying everything in her path today.”
“It doesn’t even sound real.”
“She could almost stop for some tea before the finish line.”
“It looks like a mistake has been made by the timing chip.”
In the World Championships a year later, during the pandemic, her lacerated leg changed everything. It was near-miraculous she reached Tokyo, where she was 31st in the road race and seventh in the individual time trial, in addition to team pursuit bronze.
She was recovering from Covid during the 2023 road worlds in Scotland, and nearly did not race. She won the gold medal anyway, albeit by six seconds. She also became the first woman to win individual pursuit (a non-Olympic event on the track) and individual time trial in the same season.
Even during that build-up, Dygert was rehabbing. In November 2022, she posted on Instagram about surgery to treat supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), a condition causing episodes of rapid heartbeat. She called it “annoying but not life-threatening.”
The 2024 build-up has not gone to plan, either.
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Last autumn, Dygert had another surgery on her left quadriceps to remove scar tissue. That helped the quad heal and allowed better circulation, enhancing recovery from hard efforts.
She had planned to start the year racing in Australia. But Achilles flare-ups at a January camp in California scuttled that.
In a span of 11 days in March, she finished sixth, 36th (a broken wheel knocked her out of the final sprint) and 43rd in spring classics in Belgium. In the latter, she was involved in three crashes.
By then, she decided to return to her residence in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she spent April recovering. She has subsequently trained in Belgium, Colorado Springs and Boise.
After she recently caught Covid again, she posted, “I thought this was the setback that I couldn’t have.”
Not so. It became merely another barrier in a never-ending steeplechase.
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Besides having time to regroup and train for the Olympics, Dygert takes confidence from collaboration with Armstrong, who coached her previously and is now doing so again.
“She shared her experience of handling pressure on and off the bike, and that’s helpful,” Dygert said via her racing team. “I feel blessed by God with a strong mind-set and ability to take on pressure and adapt to all situations.”
The Paris timetable is favorable. Her best event, individual time trial, comes first. The road race comes early enough so that she might not be impaired for team pursuit, in which qualifying is two days later.
In Tokyo, the road race left her weary for the individual time trial, especially after a rushed recovery from the 2020 crash.
Dygert has said she is aiming for seven Olympics, which would mean riding until age 43, as Armstrong did.
“She wants to be known as one of the greatest cyclists of all time,” said Guillermo Rojas Jr., CEO of TORRE Consulting.
Record for Olympic medals by a female rider is six, five of them gold, by Great Britain’s Laura Kenny. In March, Kenny announced her retirement at age 32.
At 32, the Brownsburg rider would have three Olympics to go. Inevitably, those medal totals become a Dygert target. As her own racing team has posted:
She just needs to get to the start line this summer. The rest will follow.
Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: US Olympic cyclist Chloe Dygert gold favorite in individual time trial
