Zoe Bäckstedt has had an odd 2024. The 20-year-old won the under-23 Cyclo-cross World Championships in February, finished second in the Antwerp Port Epic in May, and then won her first Women’s WorldTour event in October. However, she also spent months off the bike due to illness and injury.
“When I was racing this year, I’d say it was pretty good,” the Canyon-SRAM rider explains. “I didn’t do loads of races, but the races I did do, I had some decent results, at Roubaix, at the Vuelta, second at Antwerp. Then to finish it off with a stage win and a GC podium [at the Simac Ladies Tour] - you don’t expect it at the end of the year, but that almost makes it more special.”
The Welshwoman will head into the cyclo-cross season full of confidence from that first elite victory, but with low expectations. Her first race is this Sunday, at the X2O Trofee Lokeren - Rapencross, and the plan is for the U23 world champion to race all the UCI World Cups apart from the one in Sardinia - too difficult to get to, apparently.
“I don’t really know what to expect,” she said. “I think it’s the same in ‘cross every season, no one really knows what’s going to happen. Your skills could be rusty, or someone could have been doing more training on it over the summer. It’s about going into the first races with an open mind and just going there to get some intensity, and then you can start dialling down on everything and focusing a bit more on certain areas.
“I have no expectations of how my winter is going to go. I want to take it day by day, race by race, and then see how that is. It would be nice to have some podiums, some good results in World Cups.”
Back on the road, after winning stage one of the Simac Ladies Tour, there was hope that Bäckstedt could triumph overall. However, those plans were scuppered when she was left without any teammates after just the second stage.
“It was interesting, it made the race a lot different,” she said. “It’s not something you could really explain, but when you see people attacking and you think ‘where are my teammates to follow this one?’, and then you realise that there are none, and I was on my own. It was up to the other teams then to try and chase stuff down. It was fun though, it was like doing a really long ‘cross race, loads of staff and one rider. We had the camper and a team car just for me.”
It was a reassurance that Bäckstedt now feels at home at WorldTour level, just a couple of years after leaving the junior ranks, where she was world champion on the road, track and in ‘cross.
“The jump between junior and WorldTour was big, but now I know I can do those races,” she explained. “I can be there at the end. I’ve grown enough to be there in the final.”
The 20-year-old has now been joined in the WorldTour by another British junior world champion, Cat Ferguson, with other young Brits including Imogen Wolff and Carys Lloyd following.
“Their year is really super strong, and these girls are doing so many disciplines and doing what makes them enjoy riding,” Bäckstedt said. “I think that really helps.”
Back to shorter ‘cross races, and the 20-year-old should be troubling the podium once again across the winter.
Zoe Backstedt is a Red Bull athlete. Find out more about her journey with Red Bull here.
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