Megan Jastrab is one of the most exciting young US riders. She’s also a stark example of the highs and lows of professional sport.
The-then 21 year old had a remarkable spring in 2023, netting second in Gent-Wevelgem, third on a stage of the Volta Comunitat Valenciana and fourth in the Classic Brugge-De Panne.
And then things got complicated.
She crashed in Paris-Roubaix and was affected for some time afterwards. She became ill at Ride London and had to take two weeks off the bike after that. She had another setback when she fell in the neutral zone in a local race, and was then hit by a car five days before starting the Giro d’Italia Donne.
Jastrab was fourth and fifth on stages there despite her injuries, and believed that things were turning around. But the Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL rider crashed again on stage one of the Tour de France Femmes and was on the back foot for the rest of the race.
“The year started really high for me, and then it just went downhill,” Jastrab told Velo.
That trend continued at the road world championships; she was in the lead group but punctured out of that. Support cars were caught behind other groups and she eventually finished fifth in the under 23 category.
“I got Covid at the Tour of Scandinavia without knowing it, raced Plouay with Covid, got dropped. And I was like, ‘what’s going on?’
“And I was also dealing with anaemia too.”
Frustrated at the bad luck, she received reassurances from others that the situation would turn around. “Everyone was saying ‘just stay positive.’ But something always kept happening.”
Jastrab decided a solid winter would put everything back on track, and went to Spain to fully focus on her preparation.
Then things got even more complicated.
“The person who swerved into my lane did not stop”
Jastrab is full of beans, speaking with enthusiasm about life and her sport. She describes herself as ‘an optimistic person, a motivated person,’ and comes across as a bundle of energy during a chat which ran far longer than expected.
Peppering the talk with smiles and laughs, she seems able to move past her biggest setback to date, something which occurred the morning of December 21.
The Californian was sharing a house with friends and teammates in Spain on the women’s Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL squad. Some had headed home for Christmas and others were at a team training camp. She was out on a recovery ride alone and was heading down a descent when a car came at her head on.
She avoided the car but was ran off the road, crashing hard and ending up in agony in a ditch.
“I flipped, landed on the hip and fractured my pelvis,” she told Velo. “The person who swerved into my lane did not stop. Thankfully I was on a busy-enough road where people were driving by.
“I remember flipping, my bike went flying several feet down the road. Then passing drivers saw my bike. Thankfully some people stopped and called the ambulance.”
Jastrab was blessed that they had spotted her bike and had deduced something was wrong.
“It was definitely the first crash that I’ve ever had where I couldn’t stand up and feel, ‘oh, I can just get into a car and go to medical attention,’ she said. “This was like, ‘I cannot move.’”
She went to hospital, got X-rays done quite promptly, then later a soft tissue scan. She was told continuously that a doctor was coming. She ended up waiting almost 12 hours to meet that doctor.
“They didn’t give me food or water all day,” she said. Yet things would get even more farcical.
“Finally the doctor just walked in and said, ‘yep, you have a pelvic fracture. Don’t put any weight on it for three weeks. Also, you need crutches, but we don’t have any crutches. And all the pharmacies are closed.’”
Jastrab was fortunate that some of the male Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL riders were in the area and had a car they could use. They brought her home that evening, with crutches and other necessities being sorted out afterwards.
It was a brutal experience and a crash which is still affecting her two and a half months later.
“It was an amazing opportunity…I just went for it”
Being sidelined from sport after years of focus is a tricky situation. Athletes are accustomed to regular activity and to chasing their immediate goals. With both of those on hold, she had weeks where she could have got bogged down in all the setbacks 2023 brought.
However what she has achieved thus far in her career is the counterbalance to that. That bigger picture focus shows the talent is there, and that her natural ability will re-emerge once she gets over her injury.
Jastrab took up the sport in 2013 at 11 years of age and won the junior world road race championships in Yorkshire six years later. She also scooped Madison and Omnium titles in the junior track world championships that same season.
Two years after that the-then 19 year old was part of the US team pursuit squad, taking bronze in the Olympic Games. She has continued to clock up fine results since then.
Second in Gent-Wevelgem was amongst the best of those, and hints at the huge future which could lay ahead.
“That was definitely not expected at all,” she said, explaining she got her chance to sprint after teammate Pfeiffer Georgi was caught in crashes.
“I like the reduced bunch sprint, because my power now is kind of the same if I’m fresh or when I’m completely dead tired after a five hour race. That’s a really big quality in Classics, if you can still sprint at a decent power at the end of a race.”
The race was hit by cold temperatures and Jastrab had difficult moments in the semi-classic. “It was freezing. I felt really bad. But then in the final I got a second wind again. It was an amazing opportunity, and I just went for it.”
Runner-up in that race and then fourth in Classic Brugge-De Panne, Jastrab told Velo in January that the spring classics would be her number one goal this year. Her big aim was to be ready for those.
She still had a fracture to her pelvis at that point in time but it was stable enough for her to be able to train indoors twice a day.
More problematic was a tear to her gluteus medius, which required rehab and time to heal. She was nevertheless hoping to be back racing around mid-March. However that has proven to be over-optimistic.
Speaking this week, Jastrab told Velo things were moving more slowly than expected. She has spent several weeks in the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, benefiting from the help of the staff there, and will likely stay another two to three weeks.
“As an athlete you want to be back on the bike doing max efforts and getting back to racing as soon as possible. But with this injury and the glute muscle tear, it’s more of a slow build because I’m still not allowed to do sprints or max torque efforts,” she explained.
By now she’s been able to do endurance rides on the road but has to hold back from any intensity work at this point in time. Compensating for her injury has also led to niggles with her back, yet she feels she is inching forward gradually.
“My goals were definitely the spring Classics this year. Since those have been removed from my schedule due to injury, my focus shifts to just getting back to racing now.
“The biggest goal at the moment is being healthy and being cleared medically to race, to just get back to it.”
All going well she hopes to return to competition in April, either on road or in the velodrome. Securing a place on the US track team for the Olympics is a big goal for this year.
She’s also looking at some of the later races, searching for a silver lining amid the clouds.
“I am trying to look on the bright side of this injury,” she explained. “Maybe in the back end of the season I will be a bit fresher than some other people. With races like the Tour of Scandinavia, Simac, and perhaps Plouay and especially the road world championships in Switzerland, maybe I will have a little more motivation to get some good results there.”
Talented, driven and progressing well, Jastrab can take encouragement from what she has already achieved. She seems destined for the top and knows that these temporary setbacks will fortify her resilience and knowledge over time.
“This definitely put things into perspective,” she said. “You can do everything right, and things will still go wrong. It’s just always about looking forward to the next opportunity. My mother says that whenever you’re given an opportunity, take it and do what you can with it. Never sacrifice an opportunity.”
At such times she sounds wise beyond her years.
“Sometimes life throws you a curveball, and it’s just about rolling with it, and moving on to the next chance. It’s about not stressing so much when things go wrong.”
“I think everything needs to be kept in perspective. And if you can control what you can control, it’ll be fine.”