The countdown is on for the 2024 Paris Video games. The opening ceremonies happen on Friday night, and the primary biking occasion, the person time trial, will get going the very subsequent day. With it comes Staff USA’s first likelihood at a medal, and a gold one at that, if Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) has her say.
One of many quickest ladies on two wheels, the 27-year-old Indiana native is already a two-time Olympic medalist and nine-time world champion. She’s making her third Olympic look and can compete within the particular person time trial, the highway race and the crew pursuit.
With a bronze and silver medal already to her identify, Dygert will not accept something however gold.
“I wish to be higher than the very best,” Dygert just lately instructed information station WGRZ-TV. “That is how I’ve to take a look at it, or else I’ll stand nonetheless. I wish to proceed rising as an athlete, as an individual, and for me to face on that prime step, I wish to do it larger and higher each time.”
Because the reigning world champion within the races in opposition to the clock, each on the highway and within the velodrome, Dygert is a big-time favorite for the medals. Nonetheless, her run-in to the Video games was, as has so usually been the case in Dygert’s profession, marred by setbacks.
Dygert suffered an Achilles harm in December after which returned to racing a tad too quickly. The 2 crashes she sustained within the Tour of Flanders set again her restoration and she or he was as soon as once more pressured to relaxation. The hits saved coming when, upon her return to the bike at a crew coaching camp, she obtained contaminated with COVID-19. This has left her with a mere three race appearances this 2024 season, and a query mark looms over her race readiness.
Nonetheless, Dygert is optimistic, telling our sister website Biking Information that in her latest coaching block, she “began to interrupt instances that I hadn’t damaged ever and see energy numbers I hadn’t seen in a really very long time.”
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Ought to Dygert’s type be something prefer it was on the UCI World Championships in Glasgow final yr, then the query will not be whether or not she’ll win a medal however relatively of what color and what number of.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
However Dygert actually is not Staff USA’s solely medal contender. There are 23 American cyclists competing throughout the 5 biking disciplines, and the nationwide federation has set the formidable aim of securing 7-10 medals. Many want to monitor bicycle owner Jennifer Valente (Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY24) to contribute to that rely.
The 29-year-old is America’s most embellished monitor bicycle owner to this point, with three Olympic and 18 UCI World Championship medals in her possession. The Paris Video games mark her third look on the Olympics, the place she hopes to defend her Omnium gold medal from the Tokyo Olympics whereas serving to her teammates within the Staff Pursuit internet America’s first gold medal within the self-discipline. Valente will even companion up with Lily Williams (Human Powered Well being) for the Ladies’s Madison, a race that made its Olympic debut in Tokyo, however Staff USA missed out on the rostrum on the time.
In Paris, Valente, the present Omnium world champion, is closely favoured so as to add to her already astonishing medal assortment and be a vital contributor to USA Biking’s Olympic targets.
Jennifer Valente is America’s most embellished monitor bicycle owner to this point
(Picture credit score: Thomas Samson / Getty)
Staff USA’s Olympic hopes certain seem like touchdown on the shoulders of its feminine athletes with Hannah Roberts being one other favorite for the medals in BMX. Roberts is returning to her second Olympics after netting the silver medal in Tokyo. The 22-year-old is a five-time BMX freestyle world champion, and identified for her constant performances in worldwide competitions. When she gained her most up-to-date BMX freestyle rainbow jersey final August, it was her fourth consecutive title, and she or he’s going into the Paris Video games as a prime contender.
Hannah Roberts, five-time World BMX champion
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Whereas the boys’s roster could also be missing in outright shoo-ins for the Olympic medals, there is no lack of potential.
Reigning U.S. nationwide time trial champion Brandon McNulty (UAE Staff Emirates) is main the boys’s crew on the highway. He is making his second Olympic look after a stellar season by which we have seen him win on common as soon as each six race days to date.
In Tokyo, McNulty completed in sixth place –a end result that he says motivates him nonetheless.
“The race was tremendous aggressive, I relive it on a regular basis. My aim? Carry again a medal!” says the 27-year-old.
With time trial victories on the Tour de Romandie, the UAE Tour and the U.S. Nationwide Championships, McNulty is actually one to observe throughout Sunday’s time trial. Within the highway race on August 3, he’ll be teaming up with teenager Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matteo Jorgenson (Staff Visma – Lease a Bike) to type a formidable crew.
Jorgenson is contemporary off his spectacular eight-place end on this yr’s gruelling Tour de France whereas using in service of second-place finisher Jonas Vingegaard. He even nearly gained a stage however needed to make do with second place on stage 19 as a substitute. The proficient climber from Boise, Idaho, is in his first yr with the Staff Visma – Lease a Bike squad, with whom he has been having fun with a breakout season that is seen him win Paris-Good and Dwars door Vlaanderen and end second in Critérium du Dauphiné. Whereas bumpy, the course for the Olympic highway race is probably not mountainous sufficient for Jorgenson, who excels within the lengthy, sustained climbs, however a medal may nonetheless come from this dynamic trio of riders.
Matteo Jorgenson on the 2024 Tour de France
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Lastly, whereas the cross-country mountain bike fields are extremely aggressive on the Olympics, the U.S. males might have an out of doors likelihood to land on the rostrum.
Christopher Blevins (Specialised Manufacturing unit Racing) is making his second Olympic look after ending 14th in Tokyo in 2021. The 26-year-old from Durango, Colorado, had an excellent begin to the 2024 season, successful the UCI World Cup in Brazil in April and touchdown on the rostrum twice within the short-track World Cup collection.
His fellow Durangoan Riley Amos (Trek Manufacturing unit Racing) will probably be becoming a member of him in Paris. The 22-year-old has been on a tear, successful 5 consecutive races within the U23 Cross-country World Cup collection this season.
Whereas the Olympic mountain bike races are contested by fewer riders than the World Cup –simply 36 males and 36 ladies–the competitors will probably be fierce with riders like reigning champion Tom Pidcock, fifth-time Olympian Nino Schurter and constant XCO World Cup podium finisher Swiss rider Mathias Flückiger all vying for gold.
Staff USA’s mountain bike crew: Riley Amos, Savilia Blunk, Christopher Blevins and Haley Batten
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
The Olympic Biking Schedule
July 27 – Males’s and girls’s time trials
Time: 2:30-6:30 p.m. CEST / 1:30-5:30 p.m. BST / 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET
July 28 – Ladies’s cross-country mountain biking
Time: 2:10 p.m. CEST / 1:10 p.m. BST / 8:10 a.m.. ET
July 29 – Males’s cross-country mountain biking
Time: 2:10 p.m. CEST / 1:10 p.m. BST / 8:10 a.m. ET
July 30 – Males’s and Ladies’s BMX Freestyle {Qualifications}
Occasions:
Ladies’s qualification rounds begin at 1:25 p.m. CEST / 12:25 p.m. BST / 7:25 a.m. ET
Males’s qualification rounds begin at 6:11 p.m. CEST / 5:11 p.m. BST / 12:11 p.m. ET
July 31 – Males’s and Ladies’s BMX Freestyle Finals
Occasions:
Ladies’s qualification rounds begin at 1:10 p.m. CEST / 12:10 p.m. BST / 7:10 a.m ET
Males’s qualification rounds begin at 1:44 p.m. CEST / 2:44 p.m. BST / 8:44 a.m. ET
August 3 – Males’s highway race
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 6:15 p.m. CEST / 10 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. BST / 5 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. ET
August 4 – Ladies’s highway race
Time: 2:00-6:45 p.m. CEST / 1:00-5:45 p.m. BST / 8 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. ET
August 5 – Ladies’s Staff Dash, Males’s Staff Pursuit, Males’s Staff Dash
Time: 5 p.m. CEST / 6 p.m. BST / 11 a.m. ET to 7:58 p.m. CEST / 6:58 p.m. BST / 1:58 p.m. ET
August 6 – Ladies’s Staff Pursuit, Males’s Staff Dash, Males’s Staff Pursuit
Time: 5:30 p.m. CEST / 4:30 p.m. BST / 11:30 a.m. ET to eight:07 p.m. CEST / 7:07 p.m. BST / 2:07 p.m. ET
August 7 – Males’s Dash, Ladies’s Keirin, Ladies’s Staff Pursuit, Males’s Staff Pursuit
Time: 12:45 p.m. CEST / 11:45 a.m. BST / 6:45 a.m. ET to eight:14 p.m. CEST / 7:14 p.m. BST / 2:15 p.m. ET
August 8 – Males’s Omnium, Ladies’s Keirin, Males’s Dash
Time: 5 p.m. CEST / 4 p.m. BST / 11 a.m. ET to eight:04 p.m. CEST / 7:04 p.m. BST / 2:04 p.m. ET
August 9 – Ladies’s Dash, Males’s Dash, Ladies’s Madison
Time: 6 p.m. CEST / 5 p.m. BST / 12 p.m. ET to 7:58 p.m. CEST / 6:58 p.m. BST / 1:58 p.m. ET
August 10 – Ladies’s Dash, Males’s Keirin, Males’s Madison
Time: 5 p.m. CEST / 4 p.m. BST / 11 a.m. ET to eight:14 p.m. CEST / 7:14 p.m. BST / 2:14 p.m. ET
August 11 – Ladies’s Omnium, Ladies’s Dash, Males’s Keirin
Time: 11 a.m. CEST / 10 a.m. BST / 5 a.m. ET to 1:56 p.m. CEST / 12:56 p.m. BST / 7:56 a.m. ET
