Cycling - UCI World Championships 2023 - Stirling, Scotland, Britain - August 10, 2023 Chloe Dygert of the U.S. in action during the Women's Elite Individual Time Trial REUTERS/Matthew Childs
GLASGOW (Reuters) -American Chloe Dygert reclaimed the world title in the individual road time trial with a dominant ride over a 36.2km course ending in Stirling on Thursday.
Dygert, one of the early starters, stopped the clock in 46:59.80 and was not threatened until Australia's Grace Brown put in a tremendous finish on a steep cobbled climb.
Brown took the silver medal, 5.67 seconds slower than Dygert, with Austria's Christina Schweinberger completing the podium having finished more than a minute off the pace.
It was the 26-year-old Dygert's second gold medal of the UCI World Championships after easily winning the individual pursuit on the track last week.
Dygert also won the road time trial world title in Britain in 2019, destroying the field in Harrogate.
But her career was thrown into jeopardy in 2020 when she suffered horrific leg injuries in a high-speed crash as she sought to defend her title in Italy.
Dygert required three surgeries to repair the damage and was also laid low by the Epstein-Barr virus in 2022 -- a condition that causes chronic fatigue.
She had been unwell in Glasgow after her track duties, suffering with a cold, but she dug deep on Thursday to set down a time that proved unbeatable, averaging 46kph.
"If the race was yesterday I don't think I would have started," Dygert, who has returned to form one year ahead of the Paris Olympics, said.
"I spent the last four days praying that I would be okay today. I'm not 100% but I started the race today to give everything I could and it was just enough for today.
"This is really special, not just for me but for everybody behind me, the team, Canyon SRAM, USA Cycling and my family."
Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering was sixth although she is targeting Sunday's road race.
New Zealand's Sam Gaze won the Men's Mountain Bike Cross-Country Short Track in 20:27, edging out France's Victor Koretzky. Britain's Tom Pidcock came from 42nd to finish third.
In the women's event, France's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot triumphed in 21:17, with Puck Pieterse from the Netherlands in second place and Britain's Evie Richards third.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, additional reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Ken Ferris)
