Great Britain’s Zoe Bäckstedt dazzled on debut in the elite women’s individual time trial at the UCI Road World Championships Sunday. The 21-year-old Welsh woman pushed Marlen Reusser all the way, a dominant first half performance putting her in contention for the gold medal despite it being her first outing at the highest level, following her triumph at U23 level in 2025 in Kigali.
Bäckstedt talked journalists at the post-race press conference through her race, and what it was like to find out she was leading the pack in the early stages.
"In the first half, when I heard the first time check, I was thinking, 'okay, maybe it's possible'. But I knew also that Marlen was super strong, and she has a very big engine. So I knew that it was possible she would bring a lot of time back on me, and she did. So yeah, massive respect to her."
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The course’s technicalities were both an advantage, and an obstacle.
"The corners were super tight, so I had a lot in my ear from the DS in the car saying, 'okay, this corner is like wide on the entry and narrows up quite a lot', but I think I took the corners quite well. I think maybe I felt like I took them quite slow in the beginning, but you're already on quite a high heart rate, and not panicking, but just you're already in the race mode.
"Your heart rate is high, and then trying to stay focused and take all the good lines in the corners. It's not always possible. It doesn't always happen. But I think I took them as best as I possibly could, and yeah, I had quite a lot of fun there."
It was a longer course than any previous competitive effort, but that did not deter the Welsh rider, who had won four of her six competitive time trials leading up to the World Championships, including claiming her second consecutive elite national title against the clock.
"I know that I can do a long time trial," she said. "I do a lot of training on the time trial bike, like up to three hours is probably the maximum I would spend on it in a training ride. So I can ride it in the skis [drops] for quite a long time. I know that I'm comfortable with doing that, but the hardest part is being able to push for the whole time and actually more for your mind, like, being able to stay focused for so long.
"But it was really useful then having the corners in the beginning. It was quite easy to break it up like the corners. Then you have the Formula One circuit, then two laps of the circuit, the bridge back to the corners, more corners, U-turn, corners, climb. That was it.
"So okay, it makes it seem quite long. It was long, but it makes it a lot more refreshing in your mind to think in sections and like mini races within itself rather than one super-long race. Don't go out like it was a 22-kilometer time trial, go out like it's a 40-kilometer time trial, and if you've got anything left in the final, then give it everything that you've got.
"There were some very bumpy moments with the road surface, but generally it was really fun. And being able to race a few laps of the F1 circuit was also super cool."
Bäckstedt mentioned how her recon compared with the real thing.
"I think after doing recon yesterday, it was super fast. I did almost two laps in the two hours, so yeah, I knew that it would be a very fast circuit. I knew that there was not much wind coming into it, so that was not really something I needed to think about.
"But it was just going to be really hard, especially the middle section, going out towards the circuit, doing a few laps, and then coming back in where there's a lot less corners, a lot less opportunity for a recovery compared to the beginning and the end.’
Backstedt will ride in the elite women's road race next Saturday, alongside her Great Britain teammates, in her first road race appearance at elite level.
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