20 years after her father Magnus Bäckstedt took the victory in the Roubaix Velodrome, Zoe Bäckstedt put in an impressive performance at Paris-Roubaix Femmes in only her second participation at the race. The 19-year-old finished 16th in the Hell of the North, marking her best result in a WorldTour one-day race.
Speaking after the race, said in an interview with GCN after the race that “I’ve not been in that position before in any race, let alone Roubaix, so it really makes me believe that one day I can do it. I just really enjoyed it”.
The Canyon//SRAM Racing rider had to battle to stay in contention in the second group, which was chasing down the lead group of six riders as they approached the finish. On how she raced in the finale, Bäckstedt went on to say “it's Roubaix, if you're trying to fight for top-20, you never give up on that so you've got to just go as hard as you can and just try to get there”.
The difficulty of Paris-Roubaix can never be understated, as the Welsh rider said that “my hands were completely ruined from basically the first sector so towards the end I was really struggling with holding on and then just trying to dig as deep as I can. After 120-130km of cobbles, your legs are dead and your body is dead. So it was really just a case of trying to hold on for as long as possible and digging in”.
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