Great Britain’s Zoe Backstedt says she is excited to compete in the Road World Championships despite the expectation that it will be the toughest on record.
The competition will travel to Africa for the first time in its history and athletes will bid for the rainbow jersey in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, known as the ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’.
The men’s road race will have 5,475m of elevation over the 267.5km circuit, while there is 460m of climbing across 31.2km in the women’s time trial and 680m in 40.6km in the men’s event.
“It looks like a fun course,” Backstedt told BBC Sport. “It’s not super technical as quite a lot of it is on big roads.
“It should be a reasonable ratio of standing to climbing as what nationals was – so that’s exciting.
“But with all of the certainties, of course you can be nervous for it.”
Backstedt claimed her first elite title at the British National Road Championships in June and is “going to give it 200%” to win gold in the Under-23 women’s time trial.
The 20-year-old hopes to draw on the experience of women’s elite rider Anna Henderson, who claimed Olympic time trial silver for Team GB at the Paris Games.
“I think I have got a good shot,” she added. “I do have some experience in time trialling and I can also learn a lot from Hendo [Henderson] as well.
“You don’t get second at an Olympic Games for nothing!”
Besides the competition taking place on a new continent, there will also be new safety upgrades following the death of 18-year-old Muriel Furrer, who crashed in the junior women’s road race at the event in Switzerland last year.
All riders will be equipped with GPS trackers, which cycling’s world governing body the UCI says, external “will strengthen the monitoring of rider safety during races and enable rapid response in case of incidents”.
Backstedt said: “I believe the UCI are doing everything they can to make our sport and racing as safe as possible. You have to believe that they are doing what they can for us riders.”
There will also be no radio communications between the riders and their teams which will help the riders to stay vigilant for safety hazards.
