CX Pro Katie Compton, of Colorado Springs, has battled debilitating health issues her entire racing career, achieving staggering results despite her ailments. However, this past summer she faced her biggest setback to date. CyclingTips’ Neal Rogers tells the story of Compton’s decade-long journey in search of a diagnosis, and treatment.
By Neal Rogers, cyclingtips.com
You’d never have known, seeing Katie Compton stand on the second step of the Zolder World Cup on December 26, that six months earlier she’d been in the depths of despair.
To the casual observer, or even the diehard cyclocross fan, it seemed as though it was business as usual.
Of course Compton, who has been the U.S. national champion for so long most have lost track, would be on a World Cup podium. The Trek Factory Racing rider won 22 World Cup events in her career, and was the overall World Cup champion in 2013 and 2014 — the first and only American to claim the series title. Over the past decade, it’s become more of a surprise when she isn’t on the podium than when she is.
But the reality was that Compton’s near victory at Zolder, seven seconds behind Belgian champ Sanne Cant, marked the end point of the darkest period of her life.
During the summer of 2015, months that elite cyclocross racers use for base miles and endurance training, Compton was off the bike completely, battling with the two-headed hydra of health issues and accompanying depression.
What started as a recurring saddle sore ended up as an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that swelled to “the size of an orange,” producing fever and cold sweats.
A trip to a mountain bike race in Iceland in June was a disaster, ridden almost entirely out of the saddle due to pain, and ended with her husband Mark driving her straight from the Denver airport to the hospital, to have the infection drained. However the cyst burst on the way to the emergency room, oozing blood and pus down Compton’s legs and through her clothes.
It was a low point, but only the beginning of a long recovery period. The wound, which created an undermining tube 8cm deep, took three months to heal, requiring regular cleaning and redressing of a gauze wick required to drain properly.
Compton wouldn’t ride a bike again until September 5th — just 11 days before the World Cup season opener in Las Vegas, where she would somehow finish 11th, 1:20 down on Katerina Nash (Luna).
Even for an athlete who has dealt with an inordinate amount of health complications — or rather, because of the accumulated effect — the summer of 2015 presented a challenge Compton had not yet faced before.
“It was the lowest I have ever felt or ever been,” Compton told CyclingTips. “I was at rock bottom. The emotional part, the physical part.. I just cracked. I kept asking, ‘why do I have to deal with all this crap?’ Sure, I’ve had good results, but no one else [in elite women’s cyclocross] has had to deal with all of this shit.” …
Read the full story HERE.
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