Chloe Dygert very motivated for Olympic title after putting out "power numbers I hadn’t seen in a very long time"

Chloé Dygert has had a career of many ups and downs and this season has been no exception. The American time-trialist is the reigning time-trial World Champion on the road and today she battles on for an Olympic title; among the big favourites despite having had injuries and illnesses hamper her throughout some of the year.

“The original plan was to do our team camp in December, go to Australia for Tour Down Under super fit, do the spring classics, hit the first part of the season hard and then have a break before the Olympics," Dygert told Cyclingnews. "But that didn’t go to plan. I had an Achilles injury in December and tried to push things too fast to get back to spring racing. After Flanders, with the trauma from the two crashes in the race, flaring up the Achilles injury running up the climb, and the Olympics coming up, a decision was made to stop and fully recover to be prepared for the Olympics.”

The 27-year old has barely raced this season, and on the road she only has three race days to note for, all in Belgium in the spring. She has effectively not raced a single time-trial at elite level and has, as was the case several times in previous years, rarely been on the TV cameras against the riders she will face today. But this was not just by choice as she describes a preparation with plenty setbacks.

"There were times when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. But I’m here in Boise (Idaho, USA, ed.) for the last preparation and feeling good. I can’t put the Games on a pedestal, or I won’t be able to perform. I see Paris as a race, like National or World Championships.” Perhaps this will be enough to take a very important win for her career.

"I remember thinking I couldn’t do it; there was not enough time... Halfway through the lead-up, I’d been at a track camp in Zolder, Belgium, with the USA team, and after that, I got Covid. I thought this was the setback that I couldn’t have," she thinks back. "I came back to the US, had some days off, relaxed, restarted, did my altitude preparation, and then started to break times that I hadn’t broken ever and see power numbers I hadn’t seen in a very long time".