The World Championships in Yorkshire may have only reached the halfway point but Chloe Dygert-Owen has been its star so far.
The 22-year-old American shattered the
Dutch dominance against the clock by winning the elite women’s rainbow jersey
in the TT on Tuesday.
She was a huge 1:32 ahead of world road
race champion Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands).
Defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten
(Netherlands) was in 3rd some 1:52 off the pace.
Dygert-Owen looked like a star out on
the course from start to finish; attacking the test the whole way around and
never letting up.
She came into the race having won the overall, all the stages and every classification at the Colorado Classic; winning every stage on her own.
She also won the Pan American Games TT just before the Colorado race.
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She began to hit the heights in 2015, but just before she did – indeed before she had ever ridden a UCI-ranked race – former top Irish cyclist Ryan Connor spotted her potential.
Connor, who is from Northern Ireland,
was an U23 international with Team GB before riding at elite level for Ireland.
He also represented Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games.
In recent years he has made a home for
himself and his family in the US where he has been managing and coaching pro
teams.
He had only arrived in the US back in May, 2015, when he saw a young junior rider lap the field in a crit; the at-the-time unknown Chloe Dygert.
She won in such convincing circumstances
that Connor, on his first day in his new cycling job in the US, was moved to
contact USA Cycling and make sure they knew of the rider and her talent.
He
wrote a short email to Jim Miller, the head of high performance at USA Cycling
at the time; out of the blue and though he was completely new to the American
scene.
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“My
name is Ryan Connor,” the email of May 31st, 2015, began. “I now look after the
Chicago women’s elite team.
“Long
story short, I have raced at a fairly high level and have managed Irish and
Northern Irish national teams as well as UCI teams.
“At a
race today I came across a girl called Chloe Dygert who is fairly new to the
sport and may already be known to selectors. But she is certainly one to look
out for, for national selection.
“I don’t know the girl myself and have never spoken to her. But she won the race today and rides for Twenty 16 Devo. Hopefully that proves useful. Thanks, Ryan.”
Asked last night why the then 18-year-old had impressed him so much he felt he should contact USA Cycling out of the blue, Connor said the manner of her riding was striking.
“It was my first race looking after the Chicago team
and I just remember this girl blitzing the field,” he said.
“It was a crit type
circuit; rained hard all day. And she either lapped everyone or everyone bar
about three riders.
“I found out from the
girls afterwards that she was pretty new to the sport. I knew watching her she
was something special.
“So I just fired a quick email off to USA Cycling to make them aware of her as it’s such a big place over here good riders can be completely missed.”
He added that when she won the world title Connor checked his emails for her name as he had a sneaking suspicion she was the rider in his 2015 message to USA Cycling.
His search yesterday proved him right, throwing up the email above that he had sent to Jim Miller.
At that time, Chloe Dygert had never represented
the USA and never ridden a UCI-ranked race.
However,
the following month she won the US junior road and TT titles. She was then
selected for the Worlds – which were in the US that year – and won the TT and
road race crowns; four wins in her first four UCI-ranked events.
The
rest is history, still in the making of course.
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