Zoe Backstedt takes silver in Montreal time trial as she prepares to lead GB in road race
On 21 September 2026 in Montreal, Zoe Backstedt won the silver medal in the elite time trial at the Road World Championships. Shortly after the race she said: "I have to say I'm happy but at the same time of course I also came here for a gold medal."
Backstedt, who is 21 and will turn 22 later this week, grew up in Pontyclun in south Wales in a family steeped in cycling. Her father Magnus won Paris‑Roubaix, took a Tour de France stage and later moved into coaching and broadcasting, while her mother Megan won the British Road Race national title and represented Great Britain at World Championships and Wales at the Commonwealth Games. Her sister Elynor took back‑to‑back medals at the Junior Road World Championships in 2018 and 2019. Backstedt has described an early reluctance to ride—"For a long, long time I actually hated cycling," she told the BBC—adding that "It took me until I was maybe 10 or 11 to enjoy it" before "one day it just clicked and I thought this is what I want to do."
Her rise through the junior ranks included becoming the youngest winner of a women's elite cyclo‑cross race in Belgium at 17, and by 20 she had collected nine world titles across cyclo‑cross, road and track. She won the Junior World Road Race in Flanders in 2021, retained the junior road title and added the time‑trial crown in 2022, and in 2025 she dominated the under‑23 time trial in Rwanda by one minute 51 seconds on a hilly course that featured a cobbled incline—"It's brutal climbing here, but I really like it," she said after that victory.
Backstedt's progress has included setbacks. Sickness prevented her from riding at the Paris Olympics in 2024, and a broken hand and wrist disrupted her 2025 cyclo‑cross campaign, keeping her out of competition until January 2026 when she returned to finish seventh in the women's elite race at the Cyclo‑Cross World Championships in Hulst, Netherlands.
On the road in 2026 she collected further results: in June she recorded her ninth professional victory by winning a sprint stage at the Tour de Suisse Femmes, then within 10 days at the British Road Championships she defended her elite time‑trial crown and won her first British road race title in Aberystwyth, topping an all‑Welsh podium in the time trial. In July she retained the Baloise Ladies Tour title and in August rode the Tour de France Femmes for the first time, finishing fourth in the time‑trial stage.
In Montreal she finished second to 35‑year‑old Swiss Marlen Reusser, who retained the elite world time trial crown in Canada; Backstedt had chosen not to defend her under‑23 title this year. Reflecting on her result she told the BBC: "I'm over the moon with my performance," adding, "It was really a crazy long time trial so to take home the silver medal, I'm super proud of that."
Backstedt is scheduled to start the elite road race on Saturday, 26 September as one of Great Britain's leaders, alongside Lauren Dixon. "It's going to be a hard course, that's for sure," she said, and warned: "But myself and Lauren Dixon will be the leaders and I think with the team that we've got coming, we will make it a really hard race." She also confirmed she intends to continue competing across time trial, road and cyclo‑cross, saying: "Time trialling, road, cyclocross, they're all three disciplines that I really love doing and I love racing so I can't really say if I would choose one or the other."