MONTIGNY-LE-BRETONNEUX, France (AP) — The scars of Chloe Dygert’s career-threatening thigh injury were covered by the blue warm-up jersey she wore on the medal stand inside the Olympic velodrome. But the bandage over the three stitches in her chin from a road race accident at the Paris Games was all too visible.

Both were testament to the long and often painful journey he had taken to achieve the gold medal.

Dygert, a longtime supporter of the U.S. women’s pursuit team, teamed with new Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner, Jennifer Valente and Lily Williams to beat New Zealand in the finals Wednesday night. And in doing so, Dygert finally got to hear her country’s anthem while standing on the top step of the podium.

“I’ll keep this,” Dygert said, before pausing for the slightest moment. “It doesn’t end here. We’re moving on.”

Of course, because that’s exactly what made the 27-year-old athlete from Brownsburg, Indiana, stubbornly refuse to stop despite crashes, injuries and bitter disappointments — possible his Olympic dream.

Dygert was already being pegged for stardom before the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she helped the Americans win a silver medal in the team pursuit. She was coached by three-time Olympic time trial champion Kristin Armstrong, and Dygert was supposed to take over the time trial baton for the U.S. once Armstrong retired.

Dygert was on his way to the Tokyo Olympics and was making good on that promise when disaster struck during a world time trial on a sharp right-hand bend on a winding road in the Italian countryside. Dygert hit the barrier, plummeted down a cliff face and looked down to see a horrific gash in his thigh that went all the way to the bone.

It took nine months for Dygert to be able to ride a bike again.

She still hadn’t fully recovered by the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games, but she helped the women’s pursuit team win a bronze medal. And Dygert’s recovery continued to be derailed by things beyond her control: the Epstein-Barr virus, which left her struggling with extreme fatigue, and heart surgery two years ago for supraventricular tachycardia, an irregular rapid heartbeat that can be especially dangerous for a cyclist who pushes her body every day.

Added to the challenges of his personal life, Dygert was left in what he called a “dark place.” In an interview with The Associated Press last year, he admitted there were times when he questioned whether he wanted to move forward with his cycling career and his life.

“What I had to endure physically for the injury itself, then what I had to endure mentally — all the personal stuff — sometimes my life didn’t matter to me,” Dygert told the AP. “I didn’t care if I was alive or not. I didn’t care about anything.

“People don’t see it and they don’t understand it,” he continued, with raw honesty, “and I can say the same thing: I see people with injuries and things that happen to them, and I can’t understand what they’re going through.”

Dygert spent time racing in Belgium with her professional team earlier this year, but her main focus was on the Paris Games. She continued to focus on the time trial, where she is among the favourites for gold, before moving on to the road race and turning her attention to the pursuit race at the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

These time trial ambitions were dashed when Dygert crashed while negotiating a corner on slippery roads in the rain. He was able to quickly remount but had no hope of winning gold and held on to win bronze with blood dripping down his chin.

In the road race, it was Faulkner who caught a breakaway in the finishing kilometers and then daringly attacked on a section along the Seine River. He soloed to the finish line to win the first American gold medal in an Olympic road race in 40 years, and Dygert soon joined the celebration, helping Faulkner hold aloft the Stars and Stripes.

They were able to celebrate again on Wednesday night after leaving New Zealand behind in a hot and noisy velodrome.

It was a moment Dygert had been dreaming of for years, and one that those around her enjoyed just as much.

“I mean, considering where he is and where he’s come from, it’s really incredible,” said Gary Sutton, the USA Cycling Federation endurance track coach who has worked with Dygert for nearly a decade and will retire after the world championships in October.

“He’s one of the best athletes in the world,” Sutton said, “and you know, I mean, what he goes through – there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes and people don’t see it. And he handled it all, everything, like a true professional.”