BLOOD, SNAGS AND TEARS

A rare arterial condition curtailed Zdeněk Štybar illustrious career but not before one last heroic home tilt at the cyclo-cross Worlds

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zdeněk Štybar has been competing in cycling for more than half his life. He knows when his body just doesn't feel right. "For the past three years, I was underperforming and could always explain why," the Czech tells me. "First there was Covid, and then I had a heart issue." In April 2021, he had surgery to fix cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat. "And then in the past year, I was training well, hitting good numbers and should have been in the best shape of my life, but I just couldn't perform in races. My legs were so tired, so sore. When we hit a climb, I was immediately dropped, and could no longer do the numbers. I didn't understand. It was such a weird feeling. I felt lost."

Naturally, Štybar, a three-time cyclocross world champion, former winner of Strade Bianche and twice runner-up at Paris-Roubaix, began to surmise that his age, 37 at the time, was catching up with him. "I said to my daughter, 'do you think after all these years of suffering, my body just won't let me go deep again?' I told myself it's time to stop my career and refocus on something else."

Štybar had joined Jayco-Alula in 2023 after spending 12 years with the various guises of what is now Soudal Quick-Step, and the team's doctor scheduled one more assessment. "He said he'd do a blood test and check for iliac artery endofibrosis." Lo and behold, after a sub-par Classics campaign last year, they located the cause of Štybar's misery. "They found it on both my legs."

Iliac artery endofibrosis (IAE) is damage of the iliac artery in the upper leg, which restricts the blood supply to the muscles and tissues of the lower limb. It's a rare condition, but one that has become increasingly common in both the men's and women's pelotons in the past decade, with riders including Marianne Vos, Annemiek van Vleuten and Bob Jungels all affected.