{"id":11728,"date":"2025-07-21T00:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/11728\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:51:09","slug":"zoe-backstedt-wins-the-2025-baloise-ladies-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/11728\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt wins the 2025 Baloise Ladies Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/zoe-baeckstedt\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/zoe-baeckstedt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt<\/a> (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) became the youngest winner ever of the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/baloise-ladies-tour\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/baloise-ladies-tour\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baloise Ladies Tour<\/a> as she claimed overall general classification victory on stage 5, while Martina Fidanza (Team Visma\u2013Lease a Bike) claimed the final sprint.<\/p>\n<p>The stage witnessed a chaotic finish as a huge crash occurred ahead of the finishing straight, involving <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/charlotte-kool\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/charlotte-kool\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charlotte Kool<\/a> (Team Picnic-PostNL) and a number of other riders. However, Team Visma\u2013Lease a Bike as Nienke Veenhoven (Team Visma\u2013Lease a Bike) laid down a powerful lead-out for Fidanza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Fidanza beat Barbara Guarischi (Team SD Worx &#8211; Protime) to second place, while Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) finished third.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">B\u00e4ckstedt was not active in the final sprint; however, Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto had carefully orchestrated the day&#8217;s racing. An early breakaway contained 21st placed Mackenzie Coupland (Liv AlUla Jayco Women&#8217;s Continental Team), who at a 56-second deficit in the general standings moved into the virtual leader&#8217;s jersey for much of the day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">However, Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, aided by Team Picnic-PostNL, controlled the gap and navigated B\u00e4ckstedt safely into the lead group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Scarlett Souren (VolkerWessels Cycling Team) made a bold attack within the final 7km, but it was brought home with 2km remaining, setting the race up for the final sprint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:71.88%;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2FCXq7uUNG9Cv7HBmPqcTd.jpg\" alt=\"ZWEVEGEM, BELGIUM - JULY 20: Martina Fidanza of Italy and Team Visma | Lease a Bike celebrates at finish line as stage winner during the 11th Baloise Ladies Tour 2025, Stage 4 a 127.3km stage from Zwevegem to Zwevegem on July 20, 2025 in Zwevegem, Belgium. (Photo by Luc Claessen\/Getty Images\"   loading=\"lazy\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2FCXq7uUNG9Cv7HBmPqcTd.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2FCXq7uUNG9Cv7HBmPqcTd.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#8220;Super hectic, I think more hectic than I imagined,&#8221; B\u00e4ckstedt said, describing the race after the finish. &#8220;I think the rain brought a lot of that tension in the peloton, but once you stopped around halfway, then it got flowing a little bit better. And then it was a little bit more enjoyable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">B\u00e4ckstedt was aware of the threat of a breakaway to her overall race lead. &#8220;Yeah, for sure, there was some danger with the breakaway, but it was controlled nicely and came back to a sprint.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#8220;I think we had two generation riders, so we weren&#8217;t as strong as other teams with full WorldTour trains,&#8221; B\u00e4ckstedt said of their reluctance to control the final sprint. &#8220;In the end, we had to gamble a little, and thankfully, it paid off. Otherwise, I think we would have started to help out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">She was also close to the final straight crash, &#8216;Yeah, I was next to it, and in the sprint, when you&#8217;re going so fast, you don&#8217;t really see what happened,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But I really just hope everyone is alright. It sounded, and from my side vision, it looked awful. So yeah, I wish everyone the best.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">B\u00e4ckstedt described her double stage win yesterday as her key achievement at the race, but continued, &#8220;I think the whole week has been good. I&#8217;ve enjoyed racing. It&#8217;s been some good also some good learning steps for me, and, yeah, helping, helping the others in the team as well. So yeah, it&#8217;s just been a fun week. I&#8217;ve really enjoyed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Looking ahead to her developing form as a rider, she said, &#8220;We&#8217;ll see what the future brings. I think maybe you&#8217;re not going to see me winning at the top of Alpe d&#8217;Huez, but yeah, it&#8217;s maybe some flatter races I couldn&#8217;t do well at.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">She was, however, clear that she would be riding cyclocross in the winter. &#8220;Oh, 100% I will be there,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Results<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Results powered by <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/firstcycling.com\/\" data-url=\"https:\/\/firstcycling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FirstCycling<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) became the youngest winner ever of the Baloise Ladies Tour as she claimed overall&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-11728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}