After a virus disrupted her highway marketing campaign final season, Zoe Bäckstedt is getting ready for a Spring Classics marketing campaign and one other shot at her favorite race, Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift.
The 20-year-old competed in her first Paris-Roubaix in 2023 after which completed sixteenth within the prestigious one-day race final yr and hopes to copy the success of her father, Magnus Bäckstedt, who received the lads’s model.
Bäckstedt accomplished her cyclocross marketing campaign on Sunday, winning a second under-23 women’s world championships title in Liévin.
“I am going to have a small break, after which I am going to begin getting ready for the Classics in a number of weeks time. I’ll trip till Roubaix after which take an enormous low season,” she stated.
Bächstedt defined that her sickness final season induced a reshuffle of each her highway and cyclocross racing schedule.
I did not achieve this many Classics final yr,” she stated. “We approached my ‘cross season somewhat bit in a different way, after all, as a result of over the summer time this yr, I used to be sick.
“I wasn’t capable of do the total schedule that I wished to do on the highway. My entire highway and ‘cross season would have appeared totally different if I would had a clean summer time. You may have these obstacles in life, it was simply adapting that.”
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She will probably be racing in her third season with Canyon-Sram zondacrypto in 2025 and says she remains to be studying from lots of the group’s veteran riders.
“My learnings from the Classics … is simply to be taught from the older riders within the squad. They’ve completed all the races tons of of occasions and so they know every thing, additionally simply having the ability to belief your self and studying from one another,” she stated.
“It’s about trusting what you understand and what you wish to do, simply going all in and having some enjoyable on the market.
“I take pleasure in them [the Classics] and particularly Roubaix. That is principally a cyclocross race with a little bit of highway within the center. I do not know what else there may be to like about it.”
Bäckstedt was a agency favorite coming into the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Liévin and needed to overcome two first-lap crashes earlier than using again to the entrance.
Racing for Nice Britain, she was additionally a part of the successful group that secured the victory within the blended relay, and so she got here away from Liévin with two gold medals.
“It feels fairly surreal,” stated Backstedt. “I am tremendous pleased with it. “Popping out of those championships with one title was already an achievement, to come back out with two after the relay as nicely is one thing else.
“Individuals can put stress on me from the skin, however you simply do not hearken to it, you do not take it, and it is no matter you placed on your self,
“I simply attempt to preserve it as enjoyable as doable and simply exit to take pleasure in racing my bike. It might not appear like it in that first lap, nevertheless it was really a reasonably enjoyable course and fairly exhausting mentally.
“There was loads of trying with the place the ruts have been and what the ruts have been like. It was somewhat bit tiring on the mind in the long run. I actually loved it.”
Speaking about her first-lap crashes, Bäckstedt stated, “I knew as quickly as I crashed and I obtained again on the bike, the adrenaline actually kicked in, after which any second I may push, I used to be absolutely pushing and giving all of it.
“I got here again fairly properly, and after that, I used to be simply attempting to carry the hole as a lot as doable and never let it slip.
“There have been a number of dodgy moments, nevertheless it was simply such a unique course to what it was like this morning in recon.
“I did not actually count on it to alter like this, I knew it was going turn out to be muddy and slippery, there was loads of corners that have been off-camber in the other way to what you need them to be.”
After having her highway season in 2024 impacted by a virus, Bäckstedt returned in fashion, taking her first skilled victory on the Simac Women Tour within the particular person time trial and inserting third total.
Nevertheless, the teen stated that the stage race was simply used to construct health for her cyclocross season. “That stage race for me was like a stepping stone to get higher for the ‘cross season,” Bäckstedt stated.
“Simply to convey the race kind again in. I did not go there to take a podium or turn out to be third within the total.
“I simply went there to get a stage race within the legs and see how that went. In the long run, I got here out with a World Tour stage win and a GC podium, so I used to be fairly shocked additionally.”
