Bäckstedt’s back. Alright.
Elynor Bäckstedt owes Cycling Weekly a coffee. She went off to make us one but has since been embroiled in a long phone call about upcoming races, Covid-19 testing and other complex logistics.
In the meantime we’ve been getting to know the family dogs. When she gets off the phone she fills us in on some of the details of what athletes are currently having to go through. She was tested twice before going to her last race in Spain (UCI procedure), once before getting on the plane home, again two days after arriving, and on occasion has to do more still. In the course of explaining all this the coffee is forgotten by everyone involved.
The fact that she can now go to races at all is a relief to Bäckstedt since she spent the vast majority of her neo-pro year laid up with a broken tibia. Are you still a neo-pro, we wonder? “Yes and
