Chloé Dygert

One of the most naturally gifted – and driven – cyclists to ever push the pedals, US superstar Chloé Dygert has overcome terrible injuries and setbacks to be back at the top of her game. As she puts it: “Just get me to the start line.”

About Chloé
Chloé’s bikes
Behind the athlete

About Chloé Dygert

Date of birth: 1st January 1997
Nationality: United States
Hometown: Colorado Springs

UCI Road World Championships

Time Trial: 1st – 2019, 2023
UCI Track World Championships

Individual Pursuit: 1st – 2017, 2018, 2020, 2023
Team Pursuit: 1st – 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020
USA National Championships

Time Trial: 1st – 2021, 2023

Racing

Team: CANYON//SRAM Racing, USA Track Cycling Team
Discipline: Road, Track

Aeroad CFR

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Speedmax CFR Track

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Speedmax TT

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“When it all comes together it’s the most beautiful, unimaginable feeling.”

Chloe Dygert - CANYON//SRAM Racing

Behind the athlete

Chloé Dygert was born for the big stage.

The Indiana native burst out of the blocks as a teenager at her home world championships at Richmond 2015, winning the junior road race and time trial titles. Fast forward a decade and she has twelve rainbow jerseys to her name – across the track and the road – and two Olympic medals.

Chloé possesses two world-beating characteristics that make her a generational athlete. Firstly, there’s her physical ability.

The 27-year-old's main attribute on the bike is an extraordinary, sustained power output, making her perfectly suited for time trialling and pursuiting. She is a favourite every time she lines up against the clock on the road, and, when fit, is by far the best in the world. It’s the same in the individual and team pursuit. On her own, she’s the world record holder. When she’s with her USA team mates, she is often the game changer during a race.

Chloé’s second superpower is her mind.

Few athletes have an ability like hers to embrace pressure, lock in and focus on a goal, then suffer through immense pain and drive themselves towards victory. It is her calling card, her ‘magic bullet’, but one that has also led her to push too far – to injury, and worse. It’s this same mental toughness that has also allowed the Canyon//SRAM rider to come back from so many setbacks, however.

Comeback Queen

Everyone remembers the crash.

The reigning champion after an amazing, breakout performance at the Yorkshire world championships in 2019, Chloé was leading the time checks in the TT at Imola.

She came in hot – too hot – to a long, sweeping curve, hit the guard rail, slid along it, and flipped down the bank on the other side. The impact nearly severed her leg, almost ending her career. She admits that she was pushing too hard: “I knew I was up on time at that point. I didn’t want to just win the race, I wanted to dominate it.”

The fact she is still racing at the highest level today is a testament to her determination. Multiple surgeries, countless comebacks, endless rehab. Further complications and bad luck followed: she missed the 2022 road season due to the Epstein-Barr virus, and then had to have surgery to address a heart arrhythmia, tachycardia, later that year.

And so, finally, 2023: an almost full season on the road and track, with wins – and a newfound sprinting prowess – before doing an incredible double at the world championships in Glasgow with the individual pursuit and time trial.

Chloé is back on top of the world, and has her sights firmly set on the one medal that’s missing from her palmares. Gold at the games.

Speed dreams

Being in the vicinity of Chloé Dygert on race day offers a unique insight into what it takes to be the very best. Before time trials she is the epitome of focus, able to visualise every part of the course, and exactly how she is going to ride it.

“When I visualise a race, I know it like the back of my hand. That’s the beauty of the sport for me. Visualising how you’re going to start off that ramp into whatever wind you’re hitting first. Thinking about your leg speed, what cadence you’ll need to run. How to keep your heart rate under control. How you’ll go into that first turn. In your aero bars, or not. And so on.”

You can see it before she sets off. Taking a quiet moment to herself, often laid down in the back of the team camper, playing the straights and corners she’s about to take, one by one. And this photographic memory works both ways too – Chloé can remember every big-ticket race she’s done.

“I can still tell you to this day every turn of the time trial I did at the Richmond Worlds [in 2015], I can still play the race back in my head. In Yorkshire [2019], I knew how many times I had to cross the centre line before the first time-check. I can still hear the moment I left the ramp onto the brick when I started. I can still hear the raindrops on my helmet that day...”

What most also don’t realise is that away from these moments of performance focus, Chloe is lightness personified: fun, thoughtful, caring for her team mates. It all comes down to racing in the end, however, and it is rare to discover an athlete not just so attuned to her performance, and her bike, but also able to talk about it in such a way:

“Winning a bike race is fun. But winning a bike race when it all comes together, and you’re in unison with your body, strength, fitness, breathing and heart is the most beautiful, unimaginable, barely explainable thing. And I’m so excited and thankful for all my Canyon bikes to be able to perform at this highest level so I can feel this speed to help me win and accomplish my goals.”

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