'I've seen so many doctors' - Thalita de Jong looking forward to 2026 after year plagued by medical mystery

Almost ten years after her elite women's title in the 2016 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, you won't see Thalita de Jong battling in the fields in winter. Instead, her focus is on the road, racing with the Human Powered Health Women's WorldTour team.

Now 32, De Jong has endured so many repeated setbacks, she nearly quit the sport, but she keeps battling even after a mystery muscle ailment caused an early end to her 2025 season.

After early success on the road with a stage win in the Giro Donne in 2016, it wasn't until 2024 when De Jong finally broke through with wins in the Bretagne Ladies Tour, two in the Tour de l'Ardeche and the overall classification while racing for Lotto Dstny.

She seemed poised to continue that momentum in her first races with Human Powered Health this year when she took the win in the third race of the Mallorca Challenge, but it wasn't long before she was on the bench again first with a broken collarbone, then a bad bout of the flu, and then a condition that caused her leg muscles to lock up.

"Cycling is a hard sport. We all have some issues and injuries, but I had a lot of big injuries a few years [in a row] so I had to come back every time from level zero again," De Jong told Cyclingnews at the team's meeting in Boston last month.

Asked how she continues after so many setbacks, De Jong says, "I have a good team around me who helped me with that. I have the character that I can work very professionally. But of course, there are some hard years and times, and also one year that I was thinking maybe I just quit cycling...I think it was 2018 also, I was riding in a team who doesn't believe me, and the doctors, and so that was a hard time.

"Afterwards, it went well again, especially a year ago with Lotto Dstny team, I had a fantastic year, one of the best in my whole cycling career. And then I started the adventure with this team last year, and we started quite well in the beginning, also with a victory in Mallorca, also with a lot of help of the team. So that was a very good start. And also in the spring, I had some good results. Then I broke the collarbone."

The fracture from a crash in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda wasn't a big deal.

"I had surgery directly the day after. The team arranged everything very well, even Ro [team manager De Jonckere] picked me up in hospital in Germany and she brought me home. So that went very, very well. And after six weeks, I was starting the Vuelta again. OK, I was not in the best shape yet, but we saw also in Vuelta that it was growing and making steps every day."

De Jong ended the race in 16th overall, then finished fifth overall in the Itzulia Women's race and third in Durango Durango Emakumeen Saria.

"After Durango, I got really sick, but we had also some girls on the team who were sick. I think that was just a normal virus, but I don't know why it caught me - I had such a bad feeling - I never been have been so sick in my life," De Jong says.

She was hopeful that she would recover in time for the Tour de France Femmes, a major goal, since she had almost two months to recover. However, she kept experiencing a strange tension and cramps in her leg muscles.

"My inflammation values in the blood were super, super high, and I couldn't walk 10 metres without cramps or pain, so that was a hard period." Fortunately the inflammation hadn't reached her heart or vital organs, but the search for a cause went on.

"I've seen so many doctors, and different doctors, and in the end, they think, it was just post-viral myositis."

Myositis is inflammation of the muscles that can have a number of causes. It can lead to the breakdown of muscle fibres which, in severe cases, can lead to a life-threatening condition called rhabdomyolysis.

De Jong thought it was gone and started the Tour, making progress throughout the race, but after, the pain returned.

"We expected it more during the Tour, because it's a super hard race. But then after the Tour, I had some rest, a little training, and then it showed up again. I still remember the date - the 17th of August. I woke up and when I went down the stairs, and I was like, there is the muscle tension again in the legs.

"So I called immediately the doctors of the team and also my trainer - they erased everything the day after. I had a blood control, and the values were super high, and I just stayed four days in the hospital."

The second bout ended her season, but De Jong was back to full health in October and ready to take on a battery of performance tests at the specialised Human Powered Health facility in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

"I'm really looking forward to the new year," De Jong says. "I want to go back to Mallorca and see if I can do the same, like this year. But I actually I love the races in Spain, in Italy, also Binda, where I crashed this season, where I broke the collarbone.

"I know the type of races I really like, and this suits me very well. Also maybe sometimes a smaller race. At Durango I was second two years ago and now third place this year, so I have to come back to win it, fight for it. There are so many beautiful races, and the calendar of next year is so full."