After a virus disrupted her street 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 yr and hopes to copy the success of her father, Magnus Bäckstedt, who gained the lads’s model.
Bäckstedt accomplished her cyclocross marketing campaign on Sunday, successful a second under-23 girls’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 a number of weeks time. I’ll trip till Roubaix after which take an enormous low season,” she mentioned.
Bächstedt defined that her sickness final season brought on a reshuffle of each her street and cyclocross racing schedule.
I did not accomplish that many Classics final yr,” she mentioned. “We approached my ‘cross season just a little bit in another way, after all, as a result of over the summer season this yr, I used to be sick.
“I wasn’t in a position to do the total schedule that I wished to do on the street. My complete street and ‘cross season would have regarded completely different if I would had a easy summer season. You have got 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 crew’s veteran riders.
“My learnings from the Classics … is simply to be taught from the older riders within the squad. They’ve accomplished all the races lots of of occasions they usually know all the things, additionally simply having the ability to belief your self and studying from one another,” she mentioned.
“It’s about trusting what 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 mainly a cyclocross race with a little bit of street 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 using again to the entrance.
Racing for Nice Britain, she was additionally a part of the successful crew that secured the victory within the combined relay, and so she got here away from Liévin with two gold medals.
“It feels fairly surreal,” mentioned 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 properly is one thing else.
“Folks can put strain on me from the surface, 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 get pleasure from racing my bike. It could not seem like it in that first lap, but it surely was really a fairly enjoyable course and fairly onerous mentally.
“There was quite a lot of 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 mentioned, “I knew as quickly as I crashed and I bought 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 making an attempt to carry the hole as a lot as doable and never let it slip.
“There have been a number of dodgy moments, but it surely was simply such a distinct 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 into muddy and slippery, there was quite a lot of corners that have been off-camber in the other way to what you need them to be.”
After having her street season in 2024 impacted by a virus, Bäckstedt returned in model, taking her first skilled victory on the Simac Girls Tour within the particular person time trial and putting third general.
Nevertheless, the teenager mentioned 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 mentioned.
“Simply to carry the race kind again in. I did not go there to take a podium or turn into third within the general.
“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.”
