News: Gold for Zoe Backstedt

Britain’s Zoe Backstedt presented herself with a fabulous belated 17th birthday present by adding a Gold medal to the Time Trial Silver from earlier in the week

News: Gold for Zoe Backstedt

Britain’s Zoe Backstedt presented herself with a fabulous belated 17th birthday present by adding a Gold medal to the Time Trial Silver from earlier in the week after she outsprinted the USA’s Kaia Schmid at the end of the Junior Women’s World Championship Road Race in Belgium. The two riders prised themselves clear with over 30km to go and despite not getting a huge advantage, they held on to fight for the stripes at the finish. “I have no words at all, I can’t believe I’ve just done that” said Zoe. “It was probably the hardest race I’ve ever done.”

Zoe is the daughter of Paris-Roubaix champion and Tour de France stage-winner Magnus Backstedt who spent the twilight of his career racing in the UK. Zoe explained “I was just trying to keep us away from the group behind. I had teammates in the group so I knew that they’d be able to help get the gap out a bit more – once we had 30 seconds, I knew we could hold it,” Backstedt explained.

In the chase group less than a minute behind, Millie Couzens was 4th to finish the race in 6th place. The ever active Flora Perkins was 12th and Maddie Leech was 16th. A superb result for all the riders racing for their country.