PROLOGUE WIN: ZOE BACK IN BUSINESS AT BALOISE

Zoe Bäckstedt launched the defence of her Baloise Ladies Tour title in emphatic fashion on Wednesday evening, roaring to victory in the opening 3.9km prologue. The reigning overall victor stopped the clock in just 4:40 mins to pick up exactly where she left off in 2025, once again pulling on the race leader’s jersey.

“It feels really nice. Super cool! A prologue is always an interesting race – 3.9km, last year 3.2km. It’s a super, super short effort and it’s hard to know how to pace it. You never really know how your legs are going to feel in such a short time trial… well, prologue!”

The unusual distance left plenty of room for uncertainty, but one objective remained unchanged from any individual effort: empty the tank. Starting midway through the 123-rider field, Zoe did exactly that. She rolled across the line, collapsed beside her Canyon Speedmax and knocked fellow Brit Couzens (FPT) from the hot seat by five seconds. As formidable names came and went, it was Moors (LTK) who finished closest, crossing the line six seconds adrift in third.

While the margins appeared somewhat slim on paper, Zoe was the only rider to break the 50kph average barrier around the windswept, almost square-shaped course, featuring seven bends of varying technical difficulty. Despite a couple of small mistakes, she was pleased with how she managed the effort, even if the suffering eliminated any chance of clear thinking.

“Let’s just say that I had a few small hiccups – one corner where I didn’t exactly take the best line. And then, coming into the finish, my heart rate was just so high that I couldn’t even think about cornering properly. But otherwise, it was quite good. I tried to follow a pacing plan. I knew what number I needed to be hitting, and I tried my very best to do that for the whole ride. But, the pain takes over at some point, and my legs were really screaming at me.”

Attention now turns to Thursday’s first road stage: a deceptively modest 113km from Ostend to Knokke-Heist on the twisting, exposed roads synonymous with the Baloise Ladies Tour and the springtime Tour of Bruges. Forecasted winds of around 24kph could prove decisive, while plentiful road furniture and a technical finale through Knokke-Heist – tackled three times as part of a 19km finishing circuit – will also be influential.

Rather than debuting her new British national road race champion stripes, Zoe will instead line up in the overall leader’s jersey, while also heading the points and youth classifications. Following her outstanding run of road-racing success in recent weeks, the stage could also offer an intriguing chance to see how she fares in a style of bunch sprint that she’s yet to truly go after.

“I don’t really know what I’m hoping for tomorrow. Okay, I did a sprint in Tour de Suisse, but not really against any of the big sprinters. Charlotte [Kool] and Lotte [Kopecky] are here. There’s a lot of strong sprinters, so we’ll see how I go tomorrow. But, I think the wind could also play a very big part in the stage.”

HOW TO FOLLOW

Stage 1 – Baloise Ladies Tour | UCI 2.1 | Thu, July 16 | Ostend – Knokke-Heist | 113km | 210m | 13:45 CET | Live 15:00.

Stage 2 | Fri, July 17 | Zulte | 129.5km | 648m | 13:30 CET | Live 15:00.

Stage 3a | Sat, July 18 | Maaseik | 8.3km (TT) | 13m | from 11:00 CET | Live 12:15.

Stage 3b | Sat, July 18 | Maaseik | 106km | 267m | 17:00 CET | Live 18:00.

Stage 4 | Sun, July 19 | Mechelen | 111.8km | 232m | 14:00 CET | Live 15:00.

Watch every stage live on Pickx Proximus. Stay updated on X with #BaloiseLT26 and #BLT26, and follow CANYON//SRAM social channels for the latest team updates.