“On the first day I managed to ride my bike for an hour, I contracted coxsackievirus. There are days I can barely function from exhaustion, yet I\u2019ll lie awake until four in the morning unable to sleep. I have dealt with fatigue in my career for years, always just assuming it\u2019s from the constant comeback so I didn\u2019t think this was any different.”<\/p>\n
![\"Chlo\u00e9](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/dygert-chloe-wktijdrit2019-61f42336f33fc.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Chlo\u00e9 Dygert is one of the best timetrialists of her generation<\/p>\n
Still, Dygert would normally disregard the shoulder surgery as yet another stroke of poor luck, had it not been accompanied by changes in her personal life.<\/p>\n
“That is until there were signs of my body physically shutting down. More than my usual bout of injuries. Signs of unexplainable issues that normally are controllable. Uncharacteristic behavior. All things I ignored because I thought if I just pushed through, I\u2019d get through.”<\/p>\n
Energy deficit<\/p>\n
The weight issues were ultimately what first alarmed Dygert that something’s not right.<\/p>\n
“Most people who know me know that I’ve always been a good eater. I’ve never had issues with food, which is why being diagnosed with RED-S came as such a surprise.”<\/p>\n
“I’ve never been someone who was ‘sickly skinny’ There were certainly times I lost weight while preparing for a specific event, but never to a point that felt unhealthy. My body fat has never dropped below 15%, and outside of my mom occasionally telling me l was getting too thin, nobody has ever expressed concern that I was underweight. When the diagnosis came, my coach was just as surprised as I was. Those who know me know I don’t have a problem eating.”<\/p>\n
“When I look at my situation, I don’t believe my body was under-fueled because I was restricting food. I believe it was under-fueled because it was living under constant stress and was never given a chance to fully recover.”<\/p>\n
So many missed signs<\/p>\n
“Looking back, there were signs everywhere. I just didn’t see them.”<\/p>\n
The realization ultimately came through the professional eyes one of the team doctors who noticed something off with Dygert this spring.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t until my team doctor pulled me aside in the hotel before Roubaix and told me something wasn’t right that I started paying attention. Later, conversations with team management echoed the same concern: I wasn’t acting like myself. My energy, mindset, and personality had changed.”<\/p>\n
But ultimately, it was the crash in Roubaix that allowed thoughts to settle and helped Dygert understand the problem: “Then came another crash, more time off the bike, and finally the conversations that started unraveling what had really been happening.”<\/p>\n
For a rider as talented, it’s an insane amount of terrible luck to be dealing with yet another massive setback derailing her career. In order to resolve this issue, it’s likely we’ll have to wait for Dygert’s competitive return a while longer. But hopefully, once she does so, she’ll come back stronger.<\/p>\n
“In my own mind, I struggle to justify it as enough of a reason for the results I\u2019ve lost, the opportunities I\u2019ve missed, and the failures I feel. But for those who have seen it all had the same reaction: how could one person go through all of that and still keep going? 11 seasons and not one went uninterrupted.”<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a question I am asked constantly… The answer is simple: it\u2019s the only way I know.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I lost my period 8 months ago. I\u2019ve gained 9kg. I lost my drive, my excitement, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,354797,784,85],"class_list":["post-754436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chloe-dygert","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}