2024-07-28 01:25:02
PARIS – Getting to the start line represented a victory for Chloe Dygert. She elaborated on how grateful she was to be here.
On the other hand, the 27-year-old Brownsburg cyclist didn’t get to be who she is by aiming for medals that are not gold.
So even as she hobbled from station to station for post-race interviews, after overcoming a crash to win a third Olympic medal, Dygert was ready to get back on the bike.
“I don’t show up to a race to lose,” she said after taking bronze in the individual time trial at the Paris Olympics. “I’m not going to be a sore loser. Everybody shows up to win. Everyone here who’s not sitting on that top step is going to say the same thing.
“We want to win. We don’t want to lose. We’re going to be appreciative and supportive to all the riders. I’ve just got to get better so the next time I show up, I can be on that top step.”
Grace Brown, a 32-year-old Australian who recently announced this would be her last season, was an emphatic gold medalist. She rode the rain-slickened, 32.4-kilometer course (20.13 miles) in 39 minutes, 38.24 seconds for a 91-second victory.
Great Britain’s Anna Henderson took the silver medal in 41:09.83. Dygert was third in 4:10.70, less than a second from silver.
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Dygert has twice been world champion in this event, winning by a record 92 seconds in 2019 and by six seconds (over Brown) in 2023.
Dygert’s crash and grisly thigh injury at the 2020 World Championships in Italy has been widely chronicled, and it is something that still affects her riding. In this season, her training was interrupted first by an Achilles injury and later by a bout of COVID-19.
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Brown said she felt gold was within her grasp when she was five seconds ahead of Dygert at the first checkpoint.
“Because in past races she has always gone out really hard,” Brown said. “So she usually over-paces the front half of the race and I’m stronger in the back end.
“To be first at that point, feel really strong still and know that I wasn’t fading at all, then I was confident that I could take it all the way to the finish. And I did.”
Dygert said her “legs weren’t fabulous” three minutes into the race, and her concern grew after trailing at the first checkpoint.
“That really got me,” she said. “I knew the way back was a little more downhill, and I thought I could use that to my advantage.”
Dygert crashed ahead of the second checkpoint, where the surfaces changes from tarmac to cobblestones. She said she liked the conditions – cool for summer – but conceded she took the turn too sharply. She smacked her leg on the bike frame, began feeling muscle spasms, and also nicked her helmet.
“Here and there, there were moments I lost a little bit of power,” she said. “Again, no excuse to finish third. Those two girls ahead of me are amazing athletes.”
Dygert’s two other Olympic medals are both in track cycling’s team pursuit, a silver in 2016 and bronze in 2021.
She is still scheduled to be in the road race and team pursuit, and said her participation would depend on the medical team.
“My leg is definitely hurting,” she said.
The time trial course started and finished at Pont Alexandre III, an historic monument spanning the Seine and the most ornate bridge in Paris. Riders went east along the south bank and out into Bois de Vincennes. They twice passed the Notre-Dame cathedral.
They were within sight of the column of the Place de la Bastille, the former royal residence of the Chateau de Vincennes, and the outdoor Velodrome Jacques Anquetil, a site for the 1900 and 1924 Olympics.
Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.
