After a virus disrupted her highway marketing campaign final season, Zoe Bäckstedt is making 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 12 months and hopes to copy the success of her father, Magnus Bäckstedt, who received the boys’s model.
Bäckstedt accomplished her cyclocross marketing campaign on Sunday, successful a second under-23 ladies’s world championships title in Liévin.
“I am going to have a small break, after which I am going to begin making ready for the Classics in just a few weeks time. I’ll journey till Roubaix after which take an enormous low season,” she stated.
Bächstedt defined that her sickness final season prompted a reshuffle of each her highway and cyclocross racing schedule.
I did not achieve this many Classics final 12 months,” she stated. “We approached my ‘cross season just a little bit in another way, after all, as a result of over the summer time this 12 months, I used to be sick.
“I wasn’t in a position to do the total schedule that I wished to do on the highway. My entire highway and ‘cross season would have appeared completely different if I would had a easy summer time. You will have these obstacles in life, it was simply adapting that.”
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She shall be racing in her third season with Canyon-Sram zondacrypto in 2025 and says she remains to be studying from most of the group’s veteran riders.
“My learnings from the Classics … is simply to study from the older riders within the squad. They’ve executed the entire races tons of of occasions and so they know all the things, additionally simply having the ability to belief your self and studying from one another,” she stated.
“It’s about trusting what you recognize and what you wish to do, simply going all in and having some enjoyable on the market.
“I get pleasure from 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 driving 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 proud of 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.
“Folks can put stress on me from the skin, however you simply do not take heed to it, you do not take it, and it is no matter you placed on your self,
“I simply attempt to maintain it as enjoyable as attainable and simply exit to get pleasure from racing my bike. It might not seem like it in that first lap, however it was really a fairly enjoyable course and fairly exhausting mentally.
“There was numerous wanting with the place the ruts have been and what the ruts have been like. It was just a little bit tiring on the mind ultimately. I actually loved it.”
Speaking about her first-lap crashes, Bäckstedt stated, “I knew as quickly as I crashed and I bought again on the bike, the adrenaline actually kicked in, after which any second I might 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 making an attempt to carry the hole as a lot as attainable and never let it slip.
“There have been just a few dodgy moments, however it was simply such a distinct course to what it was like this morning in recon.
“I did not actually anticipate it to alter like this, I knew it was going turn into muddy and slippery, there was numerous corners that have been off-camber in the wrong way to what you need them to be.”
After having her highway season in 2024 impacted by a virus, Bäckstedt returned in type, taking her first skilled victory on the Simac Women Tour within the particular person time trial and inserting third total.
Nonetheless, 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 carry the race kind again in. I did not go there to take a podium or turn into third within the total.
“I simply went there to get a stage race within the legs and see how that went. Ultimately, I got here out with a World Tour stage win and a GC podium, so I used to be fairly shocked additionally.”