Zoe Backstedt has laid down an impressive marker for the upcoming World Championships at the Hexia Cross Gullegem on Saturday with a convincing solo victory in brutally difficult, muddy conditions.
The 19-year-old sealed her first win in Belgium this season - and the first triumph of 2024 - after she attacked with two laps to go from a group of three race leaders.
Second was Manon Bakker, and Inge Van der Heijden finished third in the West Flanders event, while standout favourite and defending champion Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado struggled early on and finally abandoned.
British National Champion Backstedt, though, was all smiles at the finish, having mastered the ultra-difficult conditions for a powerful lone win.
“I have to say that was one of the most fun races I’ve done this year,” she said later. “I’m head to toe in mud, and that is just what I love. I was at the front, we battled it out, every straight there was someone different on the front, and then I decided to attack with two laps to go.”
Van der Heijden and Backstedt opened up an early lead on the ultra-muddy, old-school course where conditions were rendered even tougher than usual after a week of torrential heavy rain, with one segment near a river was actually removed before the elite races.
Standout favourite Alvarado, meanwhile, had a poor start while Van der Heijden’s Crelan-Corendon teammate Manon Bakker joined the duo ahead at the end of the first lap.
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The trio then managed to keep Alvarado - who bounced back to fourth before finally abandoning - at a distance while consolidating their own podium positions and focussing on the victory.
Bakker and Backstedt, already rivals in the early season races in Indianapolis, initially pushed each other hard, but it was Backstedt who then launched a key, well-timed attack on the road section to gain a few metres advantage with two laps to go.
Backstedt took two bike changes in quick succession. But her trip through the pits barely cost her as she maintained stunning consistency and a measured pace through the unrelentingly gloopy conditions, only for Bakker to drop her teammate and start a lone pursuit of the Briton.
Third in the same race in 2022, Backstedt entered the final lap with a 35-second advantage, and her gap steadily increased from there on. Van der Heijden then briefly came back to Bakker with a trademark late surge, but there was little they could do to stop the Briton.
“I attacked because Manon was looking down at her pedals, and I was already clipped in, and I thought, you know what? She’s not watching what’s going on, so I just went for it,” Backstedt explained later.
“I looked back at the end of the straight, and I had a little gap, and then it was just trying not to make mistakes after that, and, yeah, it worked out.”
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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