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 duplicate the success of her father, Magnus Bäckstedt, who gained the lads’s model.
Bäckstedt accomplished her cyclocross marketing campaign on Sunday, profitable a second under-23 girls’s world championships title in Liévin.
“I’ll have a small break, after which I’ll begin making ready for the Classics in a number of weeks time. I’ll journey till Roubaix after which take a giant low season. I did not accomplish that many Classics final 12 months,” she mentioned.
Bächstedt defined that her sickness final season brought about a reshuffle of each her highway and cyclocross racing schedule.
“We approached my ‘cross season a bit of bit otherwise, after all, as a result of over the summer time this 12 months, I used to be sick.
“I wasn’t capable of do the total schedule that I wished to do on the highway. My complete highway and ‘cross season would have seemed totally different if I’d had a clean summer time. You 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 continues to be studying from lots of the group’s veteran riders.
“My learnings from the Classics, is simply to study from the older riders within the squad. They’ve accomplished all the races tons of of instances they usually know every little thing, additionally simply with the ability to belief your self and studying from one another,” she mentioned.
“It’s about trusting what you recognize and what you need to do, simply going all in and having some enjoyable on the market.
“I actually take pleasure in them [the Classics] and particularly Roubaix. That’s mainly a cyclocross race with a little bit of highway within the center. I do not know what else there’s 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.
The Canyon-Sram zondacrypto rider was additionally a part of the profitable Great Britain blended relay squad and got here away from Liévin with two gold medals.
“It feels fairly surreal,” mentioned Backstedt. “I’m tremendous proud of it.
“Coming out of those championships with one title was already an achievement, to return out with two after the relay as properly is one thing else.
“People can put stress on me from the surface, 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 actually simply attempt to hold it as enjoyable as potential and simply exit to take pleasure in racing my bike. It might not appear like it in that first lap, however it was really a fairly enjoyable course and fairly arduous mentally.
“There was loads of wanting with the place the ruts had been and what the ruts had been like. It was a bit of bit tiring on the mind in the long run. I actually loved it.”
Talking about her first-lap crashes, Bäckstedt added: “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 totally 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 potential and never let it slip.
“There had been a number of 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 change into muddy and slippery, there was loads of corners that had 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 Ladies Tour within the particular person time trial and inserting third total.
However, the teen mentioned that the stage race was simply used for constructing health in direction of her cyclocross season.
“That stage race for me was actually like a stepping stone to get higher for the cross season,” Bäckstedt mentioned.
“Just to deliver the race type again in. I did not go there to take a podium or change into third within the total.
“I simply went there to get a stage race within the legs and see how that went. In the top I got here out with a World Tour stage win and a GC podium, so I used to be fairly shocked additionally.”