From youth to diagnosis

Logan Phippen was born in Seattle, Washington, 31 years ago, but grew up in the city of Ogden, Utah, in the United States of America. From an early age, he showed a love and aptitude for sports, particularly endurance sports, and participated in Nordic skiing, running, and mountain biking (MTB) during his youth. However, it was road cycling that captured his heart, inspired by the European races he watched on television, and he even competed in races on the American circuit.

However, the year 2016 will forever be a defining moment in Logan’s life. Just a few days after turning 24, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, the insulin-dependent type. While this news would have been devastating for many, for Logan, it became the catalyst that reignited his dream:

At the time of the diagnosis, I wasn’t competing; I had gone on a hiatus. But that moment represented a turning point in my life, where, for me, if there was no medical intervention, I would die. So, it was like having a new lease on life, and I realized that if I had to manage this condition, having to treat myself every day, then I had to make sure that I would be really in touch with my passions in life. Since I was a little kid, I just wanted to be a cyclist. And that’s when I thought, ‘Okay, now I owe it to myself to go all the way and see how far I can go.’ And that was my first major goal: for one, I wanted to be a better cyclist than I was before I stopped racing when I was 21, and to show that I could be a better racer with diabetes than I was without it. And I have done that now! I passed that level years ago. So now, it’s like a new frontier of what is possible to achieve with diabetes.