American focused on making Rio Olympics track team
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Emma White, Chloe Dygert (USA) and Agnieszka Skalniak (Poland) were the junior women's road race podium(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chloe Dygert (United States of America) wears the world champion's jersey after winning the junior women's time trial(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chloe Dygert (USA) does the junior women's double with victory in the road race(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
2015 Junior World Champion Chloe Dygert (USA)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chloe Dygert (USA) powers to the junior women's time trial title(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chloe Dygert (USA) has been on a whirlwind adventure over the past six months after taking two junior world titles on the road last year. She could now be on course to take her first senior world title on the track in the women’s team pursuit at the Track World Championships in London.
Dygert was part of the four-woman team that broke the USA’s national record in the 4km pursuit during qualifying on Thursday afternoon. There is still another round to negotiate before they have a shot at a medal but the team are looking stronger than they ever before.
“It’s awesome. We worked really hard, we’ve been practicing a lot, and we gave everything we had, and it worked out perfectly,” Dygert told Cyclingnews after sitting down with the other riders and their coach Andy Sparks to dissect their ride.
“It’s been really exciting, we worked really hard every day on the track, and it worked out really well today. We didn’t care who was around us today or who we were racing against we just wanted to do the best possible time. We broke our national record, so it’s a great day.”
Dygert and her fellow teammates have been involved in an intense training programme as they work towards taking the first women’s gold medal. The effort has required her to take a step back from the road where she impressed so much last season when she took the junior time trial and road race titles at the World Championships with ease.
“It’s been fun and interesting, and it is awesome to have this chance to be on the track,” explained Dygert. “Team USA has been so supportive, and it’s been awesome to be with the track team. Coming from the road, it’s about three or four months on the track, and it’s been exciting… Right now I’m devoting most of my time to the track. I think that after the Olympics I’ll go back to the road, but right now it’s 100 per cent track.
“The Olympics is my main goal. After that, if I qualify, I’d like to go to road worlds that would be awesome if I could.”
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Dygert has showed that she can perform over several different disciplines and, at 19, she still has time to decide where she wants her career to head. However, the American already has a few ideas about what she wants to do in the future.
“I really like pink, so I want to win or do really well at the Giro so that I can wear the pink jersey,” she told Cyclingnews. “I kind of want to follow in Ina-Yoko Teutenberg’s footsteps and be a really good stage racer, and WorldTour racer or maybe someone like Kristin Armstrong or Pauline [Ferrand-Prevot], and just try to be the best cyclist I can be.”
The USA will go up against defending champions Australia in the second round of the pursuit with the medals up for grabs in the evening session
Born in Ireland to a cycling family and later moved to the Isle of Man, so there was no surprise when I got into the sport. Studied sports journalism at university before going on to do a Masters in sports broadcast. After university I spent three months interning at Eurosport, where I covered the Tour de France. In 2012 I started at Procycling Magazine, before becoming the deputy editor of Procycling Week. I then joined Cyclingnews, in December 2013.
