Chloe Dygert: ‘My goal is to go under 3.10 in the individual pursuit’

Chloe Dygert has set herself the goal of taking the women’s individual pursuit World Record under the three minute ten second mark after she twice lowered it at the World Championships in Berlin.

The American lowered her previous 3km individual pursuit by nearly three seconds to 3.17.283 in the qualifying round. German Lisa Brennauer qualified second with a time that was also inside Dygert’s previous best but was still just over a second off the American.

Come the final, Dygert sped out the gate to lead by two seconds at the halfway point and never let up finally crossing the line in 3:16.937, another new world record.

She said: “Last year I had a goal to set a 3.15 or a 3.16 but today I really wanted to get a 14 so I’m a little bummed. But to be able to win is always good.”

The American, who has won all seven World Championship track race she’s ever entered, added: “My all time goal is to break 3.10 I missed last year due to an injury and I’ve only been on the track for a short time now.

“There are some huge gains to be made with training, with bikes, with how aero I can be - everything. There’s little things that can be done so I hope to be able to get that.”

Her margin of victory over Brennauer was eight seconds but she said she wasn’t confident it would be so decisive ahead of the final. “In races past I knew that Lisa is not known to be able to back it up, so I figured that would happen. But I can’t assume that every race, she’s a strong rider. I had to go out there with everything I had.”

With Dygert’s exceptional performance in the event and Filippo Ganna’s continual lowering of the world record bar in the men’s version there is a stronger case than ever that the individual pursuit should make a return to the Olympics, where it was once considered the blue riband event. She said that would “be the greatest thing ever”.