Great Britain's Zoe Bäckstedt is being looked at as the favourite for the under-23 women's time trial at the Road World Championships in Rwanda, and has the confidence to go with the external expectations.
Bäckstedt, formerly the junior world champion in both the TT and road race, will take on the inaugural standalone women's under-23 time trial in Kigali on Monday, as the women's age category is raced as a separate event for the first time ever.
Previously, the U23 title was awarded to the best U23 finisher in the elite race, with no separate distance, course or quote allocations.
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This year, however, after three years of the 'race within a race' scenario, the under-23 women will take on a slightly shorter course, and properly battle between themselves.
Winner of four time trials already this season, including the British national title and a WorldTour win, Bäckstedt is hoping to add a rainbow jersey to her 2025 haul.
"That's the goal, I would really love to be able to do that," she said, speaking a few days before the race. "But you never really know what's going to happen on a course like this, with also the altitude to think about. I think that's going to be a big part. And also the travel, it's a long flight before, so who knows how your body is going to react compared to, say, doing it in Belgium or on a home course or something like that.
"I would like to upgrade [her junior titles] to under-23, if it's possible, for sure I'm going to give it 200% to try and go for that gold medal, but we'll see on the day."
The course in Kigali is 22.6km for the U23 women, and features two modest climbs: one 2.3km effort in the middle, and another cobbled ascent near the finish.
"It's interesting. I think it's going to be good. It looks like a fun course, if you ask me, not super technical. From the looks of it, it's quite a lot on big roads, so it's going to be interesting in that sense," Bäckstedt said.
"I think it should be a reasonable ratio of distance and climbing to what Nationals was, so that's also quite exciting, just without that really, really steep climb that we had to do [at British Nationals]. Some cobbles at the end, why not throw them in? That's also going to be fun. I think it's going to be hopefully easy to break down – you obviously have the long climb quite early on, and then still pushing on the downhill, just trying to make up time wherever you can. It's quite a nice distance for me as well."
The distance is part of the reason why Bäckstedt, a WorldTour-level rider, is going for the under-23 title rather than the elite title, seeing a better chance of success in the age-category race.
"I did think about it, riding the elite race, but I think the course this season was maybe a little bit outside of my comfort zone, it's a little bit longer, a little bit more than what I'm used to," she said. "I think I've got a good shot at the under-23 and I'm still under 23 for this season, so why would I not try and go for it?"
With several time trial wins under her belt already this year – though competitor Paula Blasi (Spain) also has a WorldTour TT win to her name in 2025 – Bäckstedt knows victory in Rwanda is possible for her.
"It makes me super confident for it, I would say," she said of her wins leading into this event. "Obviously the [Baloise Ladies Tour] prologue was super short, half a time trial let's say, but I've had some good rides on the time trial bike.
"A few different courses, different varieties of everything, of technical, fast-flowing, a bit of that, and then Nationals was also a super nice course, some technical descending in there as well, some nice climbing, giving a bit of what it's going to be like for the upcoming Worlds. So it does give me some confidence going into it."
Now in Kigali ahead of Monday's inaugural event, Bäckstedt knows that favourite status and previous success doesn't always translate to the win, but is hoping she has put all the pieces together for the best result possible.
"I hope I'm in peak condition," she said. "The last weeks of training have been good, so we will only find out on the day I think."
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