Chloé Dygert did not make the trip to Australia as planned to begin her 2024 campaign. Instead, the reigning time trial World Champion remained in the USA to recover from “a minor injury”, according to her Canyon-SRAM team.
The 27-year-old was originally named to the start lists for both the Women’s WorldTour openers at the Santos Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. However, Dygert was a scratch for the three-day road race, underway from Jan 12-14.
"Chloé Dygert, who was originally named as racing the Santos Tour Down Under, won’t join the team as she recovers from a minor injury," was a single sentence the team wrote in a press release earlier this week about starting five riders instead of six at the Tour Down Under.
A representative for Canyon-SRAM confirmed to Cyclingnews in Australia that Dygert did not travel abroad for early-season racing but also did not disclose what type of injury kept her in the US.
All roads in 2024 lead to Paris for Dygert, who looks to compete on the track and on the road for Team USA at the Olympic Games in July. In 2016, she earned a silver medal as part of the Team Pursuit for the US at the Rio Olympic Games. She holds a total of 11 world titles on the track, her last in 2023 with a gold medal in the Individual Pursuit, which was just short of surpassing a world record she set in 2020.
The team’s next competitions after the Australian set of racing will be UAE Tour Women from February 8-11, then a full schedule of spring Classics. Should Dygert focus on the track to begin the season instead, she could still make a trip to Australia for the start of the UCI Track Nations Cup on February 2 in Adelaide, but is most likely not travelling so far for a single day of racing now.
Dygert was expected to make her second appearance at the Tour Down Under this week, a race where her only other start was in 2017 when, as a 20-year-old for a US Continental team, she took top 10s in three of the four stages. She followed at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race with ninth. This time out, she would have worn the stars-and-stripes jersey as US road champion.
Five riders lined up for Canyon-SRAM for stage 1 of the Tour Down Under, led by the Australian duo Tiffany Cromwell and Neve Bradbury, who is fresh off her U23 national road race title in Buninyong. They are joined by Alex Morrice, Alice Towers and Soraya Paladin, the Italian finishing ninth on the opening stage.
While Dygert ended the 2023 season on a high note, with world titles in the ITT and Individual Pursuit and a pair of US road national championships, her season was delayed until May when she injured her left leg in a crash at team camp, the same leg which so badly damaged at the Imola World Championships in 2020.
Even her buildup to last year saw her suffer through a series of health setbacks, including back problems, Epstein Barr virus and surgery to treat a heart condition, tachycardia.
Cyclingnews has reached out to Canyon-SRAM about Dygert's most recent injury and how her 2024 season will unfold in the coming weeks.
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