Welsh cyclist Zoe Backstedt won silver in the women's time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal. The defending champion in the under-23 category, she was beaten by a more experienced rival.
Backstedt finished 40.11 seconds behind the defending champion, Marlen Reusser. Reusser retained her title on her 35th birthday, with a time of 50 minutes and 24.44 seconds. Backstedt led at the first two intermediate checkpoints, but the Swiss rider made up the deficit in the final stretch. Third place went to Germany's Franziska Koch, who was 5.43 seconds behind Backstedt.
The course in Montreal was 39.2 km long, almost twice the usual distance. Backstedt secured the third British medal in the discipline, following Emma Pooley's gold in 2010 and bronze the following year. Backstedt is the former world champion in the time trial for juniors, and this year she also won the British road race and time trial championships.
Marlen Reutter thus secured her second time trial gold, following her victory in Rwanda last year. She has also won two silver medals and a bronze in the discipline, and was a four-time European champion. She also won the time trial stages at the Tour de France Femmes and the Giro d'Italia Women.
In the men's race, Remco Evenepoel became the first cyclist to win the men's time trial for the fourth time in a row. The current Olympic champion joined Tony Martin and Fabian Cancellara as the only men to have won the title four times. Evenepoel completed the 39.2 km course in 44:53.13, beating Italian runner-up Filippo Ganna by 57.31 seconds. The 19-year-old Frenchman Paul Seixas took third. In the British camp, Callum Thornley, the British champion in the under-23 category, finished 10th, while his team-mate Ethan Hayter was 18th. Anna Morris, a British team-mate of Zoe Backster, finished 16th. Zoe Backster will race again in the women's elite road race at the World Championships on Saturday, 26 September.
