First World Championship medal for Visma | Lease a Bike: Youngest rider in U23 field thanks Dutch team and coach

Chladonova, who is barely 18 years old and also won silver in the junior category last year, owed her medal to an excellent finish uphill. At the second intermediate point, she was still in fourth place, but a few kilometers later, she finished second fastest. Backstedt was 1.50 minutes faster and therefore unbeatable on this course.

She is already having a good season at Visma | Lease a Bike. She finished seventh in her debut race in Extremadura and also recorded top ten places in the Tours of Norway and Catalonia. Recently, she added a seventh place in the Ardeche before heading to Rwanda.

“This second place is very special to me because I am only a first-year U23 rider,” Chladonova said after the World Championship time trial. “I started this time trial without any expectations and gave it my all, but I didn't expect to finish second.”

Partly thanks to the preparation with her team, which included her first altitude training camp, she was able to take silver in Kigali. "They helped me a lot. In terms of bike, helmet, and aerodynamic position, everything was well organized, and my coach, Maarten van Kooij, and I planned a good training block in preparation for this World Championship. Things went well in the Ardeche, and I hope I can also perform well in the road race.“

”I went from the juniors to the WorldTour, and then it's difficult to achieve immediate results. It's great that there is now a first World Championship for U23 riders. Someone like Demi Vollering is 10 years older than me," explains the friendly lady from Slovakia. "However, the team has presented me with a good development plan, and I'm happy with how that's working out so far with the pros."

In addition to road cycling, Chladonova also did mountain biking and cyclo-cross. "I would like to continue combining cyclo-cross and road cycling, which is going well so far. But first the road race and also the European Championships, where I want to finish my season well."