Despite losing the white jersey of the best Under 23 rider on the final day of the UAE Tour, Zoe Bäckstedt was pleased with her ride up the Jebel Hafeet climb.
The Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto rider had been in the white jersey of best young rider since finishing third on stage 1 of the UAE Tour Women in Madinat Zayed on Thursday. She then followed that with 11th on stage 2, but finally ceded the classification to Eleonora Ciabocco (Picnic-PostNL) as the race’s final test hit its steepest slopes.
Bäckstedt’s ride on the mountain was an impressive one: she held on to the climbers’ group longer than any of the other sprinters, and even outlasted some of the climbers themselves. However, the aim had been to maintain her lead in the young rider classification, and the day was tinged with a slight regret.
“I just wanted to see what I could do, I wanted to see if I could hold onto white,” Bäckstedt said after a post-stage debrief with teammates Kasia Niewiadoma and Neve Bradbury.
“I didn’t in the end because there was one little under-23 in there who’s really good at climbing, so it was maybe not what I hoped. It’s also nice to attempt a climb like this, a 10km climb in 30º (C) is not normally my thing. I’m pretty good at stages like stage 1, not like today, but in the end, I have to say it was a good day for me.
“It was brutal,” Bäckstedt said. “Super easy to start and then basically full gas into the bottom of the climb, then straight into the climb, and it was super hard. There were a few attempts to split it, but there was just not enough wind to split it today.”
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