2026 National Time Trial Championships: preview and startlists
A new, flatter course at Lampeter opens the Lloyds National Road Championships on Thursday. Zoe Backstedt and Ethan Hayter defend on Welsh roads; though, for a second year running, the elite men's race may be missing the rider who grew up just up the coast. The form, the course and the full provisional startlists.
The National Time Trial Championships return to Ceredigion on Thursday 25 June with a new course, a flatter test than last year’s, and a familiar question hanging over the elite men’s race. Josh Tarling, who grew up in Aberaeron a few miles up the coast, is named on the startlist but expected to miss a second home championships in succession — and in his absence Ethan Hayter starts as favourite to extend an already considerable record.
The women’s race carries no such uncertainty: Zoe Bäckstedt defends on home Welsh roads as the rider to beat, fresh from a stage win at the Tour de Suisse. Four jerseys are on offer across the day, on roads that reward the metronome rather than the climber.
The headline change from 2025 is the course itself. Last year’s championships were decided on a longer, harder circuit around Aberaeron; this year the race moves inland to Lampeter, with a 12.8-kilometre lap that gains and loses around 100 metres of elevation and is best described as a power test.
The circuit heads out of Lampeter, near the university campus, towards the village of Llanfair Clydogau, then returns past Cellan and the outskirts of Cwmann before crossing the Afon Teifi to the finish. Roughly three-quarters of it sits between -2% and +2% gradient. British Cycling’s stated 4.9% maximum is a reading of the steepest sustained section; the road nudges briefly higher on a handful of short ramps, but there is no climb to hide behind and nothing major to break a strong rider’s rhythm.
The elite women, U23 women and U23 men ride two laps for a race distance of 25.6 kilometres. The elite men are tested over three laps and 38.4 kilometres, the extra lap adding around 100 metres of climbing without altering the character of the test. Rhythm, pacing and position on the bike will count for more than the climbing legs — and on a course this honest, the clock leaves little room for excuses.
Timings and running order
The day runs in four blocks (start times provisional, as of 16 June):
Race
Window
First off
Last off
U23 men
09:00 – 10:16
Liam Hewitt
Ben Wiggins
Elite women
10:46 – 11:42
Rebecca Newark
Zoe Bäckstedt
U23 women
13:50 – 14:22
Lowri Richards
Imogen Wolff
Elite men
14:50 – 16:02
Kade Straker-Meads
Ethan Hayter
Riders to watch
U23 women
Perhaps the strongest storyline in the smallest field: the top four seeds — Imogen Wolff (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team), Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco) and Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team) — are the same quartet that set a junior team-pursuit world record together in 2024. They line up now as rivals against the clock, and none of them has ridden an individual time trial at UCI level this season.
Wolff at the 2025 Lloyds National Time Trial Championships. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
That leaves last year’s under-23 race as the best form guide. Wolff was the quickest of the group, fourth on the day, with Ferguson two seconds back in fifth and Lloyd eleventh, none of them troubling a podium headed by Millie Couzens. Wolff, the last rider off, is the form pick — a junior world time-trial bronze medallist with a strong all-round 2026 — but the case for Boothman is just as strong. The Scot was favourite for the junior world time-trial title last September, leading at the checkpoint before a slipped pedal on the final climb dropped her to fifth, and she arrives on the back of a breakthrough road season and her first professional win. Ferguson is the most decorated of the four — junior world champion in both the road race and the time trial — but she hasn’t raced since crashing out of the Giro at the end of May.
Welsh interest rests chiefly with Awen Roberts (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation), the Carmarthenshire rider fresh from a stage win at this spring’s Peak 2 Day, in a field where the host nation will have plenty to cheer.
U23 men
With last year’s winner Callum Thornley moved up to the elite race, Ben Wiggins (Hagens Berman Jayco) starts as favourite — the 2025 runner-up, a proven time triallist with a powerful track engine, and the last man down the ramp. A win would settle a frustrating record: he has finished second in the under-23 time trial in each of the last two years. His form lines are mixed, though. He was fourth in the Tour of Rhodes prologue in the spring but only 35th in the closing time trial of the Giro d’Italia Next Gen four days ago. However, a one-off time trial on a testers’ course is a very different prospect to racing against the clock at the end of a tough stage race.
Ben Wiggins at the 2025 Lloyds National Time Trial Championships. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Elliot Rowe (Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development) is the obvious challenger, and arrives with the sharpest recent form: third here last year, and the fastest of the British under-23s on that Giro Next Gen time trial (12th) in a race he finished sixth overall. Sebastian Grindley(Lidl–Trek Future Racing) is more than an outside bet — he was fourth in this race in 2025, ahead of Tomos Pattinson (EF Education–Aevolo), the 2024 champion who slipped to fifth and will want the rematch. Joshua Golliker (EF Education–Aevolo), a powerful all-rounder, completes the group of credible names.
For the domestic time-trial following, Jamie Whitcher (Hubo–Scott Cycling Team) is the name to find. A prolific winner on the domestic time trialling calendar who has finished eighth and eleventh at this championship, he has spent 2026 racing the road for his Belgian Continental team, but the engine that won the Azets Spring Classic time trial is well suited to a flat power course like this one.
Elite women
Zoe Bäckstedt (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto) is the favourite, and on these roads the home support will be loud. The Welsh rider is the defending champion, the reigning under-23 world time-trial champion, and in form: she won the opening time trial at the Vuelta a Extremadura in March and was runner-up in the Tour de Suisse Women time trial this month, 11 seconds behind world time trial champion Marlen Reusser over 23.7 kilometres. She has rarely looked stronger.
Anna Henderson at the 2025 Lloyds National Time Trial Championships. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
The most obvious threat is Anna Henderson (Lidl–Trek), the 2024 national champion and Olympic time-trial silver medallist who pushed Bäckstedt to within 20 seconds last year and rode the faster second half. Anna Morris (Private Member), the Welsh individual-pursuit world champion and world-record holder, finished fourth in 2025, won the opening time trial at the Peak 2 Day in March, and brings the kind of sustained power this course rewards; she is the home pick beyond Bäckstedt. Pfeiffer Georgi (Team Picnic PostNL), third last year, and Claire Steels (Movistar Team), a national runner-up in 2024, round out the established contenders.
The outside bet for a podium is Isabel Sharp (Handsling Alba Development Road Team). The former Lidl–Trek rider, rebuilding after a difficult spell, finished sixth at the EPZ Omloop van Borsele in April — a flat Dutch test won by WorldTour rider Cédrine Kerbaol — at nearly 44 kilometres per hour. On a similarly honest course, she has the form to trouble the names above her on the seedings. Under-23 time trial champion Millie Couzens, the current national road champ, is another rider that should not be underestimated.
Elite men
The story starts with an absence. Josh Tarling (NetCompany Ineos) is the finest time triallist Britain has produced in a generation — European champion at 19, and the elite national champion in 2023 and 2024 — but he will not be on the start ramp. The Aberaeron rider broke his collarbone at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in mid-June and, after surgery, his team has ruled him out of both the championships and the Tour de France.
In his absence, Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) is the clear favourite, and he arrives with form to match the billing. The three-time champion — 2021, 2022 and 2025 — has been the standout British time triallist in the WorldTour this spring, fourth in the UAE Tour time trial in February and eighth in the opening test at Tirreno-Adriatico, his team’s fastest man on both days. He took last year’s title by just under half a minute, quickest at every checkpoint; a fourth jersey is well within reach. His most credible challenger is Samuel Watson (NetCompany Ineos), the reigning national road race champion and runner-up in this time trial last year, with prologue speed to draw on too — he opened the season by winning the Tour Down Under prologue in January, edging Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) by half a second. Vernon, fourth here last year, has otherwise spent 2026 sprinting, with stage wins at the Tour Down Under, the Volta a Catalunya and the Région Pays de la Loire Tour, but that top-end speed suits a flat course. Max Walker (EF Education–EasyPost), fifth last year and runner-up to Tarling in 2024, completes the group of established names.
Hatyer at the 2025 Lloyds National Time Trial Championships. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Two names sit just outside that group. Callum Thornley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) is a time triallist by trade — the reigning under-23 national champion, a stage-race time-trial winner and a top-five finisher at last year’s under-23 Worlds — stepping up to the elite championship for the first time, though his neo-pro season has so far been built around road racing rather than the clock. Ben Turner (NetCompany Ineos), a powerful classics rouleur and a Grand Tour stage winner last year, is no specialist against the watch but has the engine to go well on a course that rewards sustained power.
For the domestic audience, Michael Gill (DAS Richardsons) is the first of the home-scene names off in the leading wave and the rider to measure the domestic field against. Matthew Rossiter (HUUB WattShop), the former Olympic rower who led after the opening lap in 2025 before fading, opens the domestic wave and is always worth the early benchmark. Charlie Tanfield, the privateer former Commonwealth team-pursuit gold medallist, is another to watch among the unattached riders.
The National Time Trial Championships return to Ceredigion on Thursday 25 June with a new course, a flatter test than last year’s, and a familiar question hanging over the elite men’s race. Josh Tarling, who grew up in Aberaeron a few miles up the coast, is named on the startlist but expected to miss a second home championships in succession — and in his absence Ethan Hayter starts as favourite to extend an already considerable record.
The women’s race carries no such uncertainty: Zoe Bäckstedt defends on home Welsh roads as the rider to beat, fresh from a stage win at the Tour de Suisse. Four jerseys are on offer across the day, on roads that reward the metronome rather than the climber.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
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A new course at Lampeter
The headline change from 2025 is the course itself. Last year’s championships were decided on a longer, harder circuit around Aberaeron; this year the race moves inland to Lampeter, with a 12.8-kilometre lap that gains and loses around 100 metres of elevation and is best described as a power test.
The circuit heads out of Lampeter, near the university campus, towards the village of Llanfair Clydogau, then returns past Cellan and the outskirts of Cwmann before crossing the Afon Teifi to the finish. Roughly three-quarters of it sits between -2% and +2% gradient. British Cycling’s stated 4.9% maximum is a reading of the steepest sustained section; the road nudges briefly higher on a handful of short ramps, but there is no climb to hide behind and nothing major to break a strong rider’s rhythm.
The elite women, U23 women and U23 men ride two laps for a race distance of 25.6 kilometres. The elite men are tested over three laps and 38.4 kilometres, the extra lap adding around 100 metres of climbing without altering the character of the test. Rhythm, pacing and position on the bike will count for more than the climbing legs — and on a course this honest, the clock leaves little room for excuses.
Timings and running order
The day runs in four blocks (start times provisional, as of 16 June):
Riders to watch
U23 women
Perhaps the strongest storyline in the smallest field: the top four seeds — Imogen Wolff (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team), Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco) and Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team) — are the same quartet that set a junior team-pursuit world record together in 2024. They line up now as rivals against the clock, and none of them has ridden an individual time trial at UCI level this season.
That leaves last year’s under-23 race as the best form guide. Wolff was the quickest of the group, fourth on the day, with Ferguson two seconds back in fifth and Lloyd eleventh, none of them troubling a podium headed by Millie Couzens. Wolff, the last rider off, is the form pick — a junior world time-trial bronze medallist with a strong all-round 2026 — but the case for Boothman is just as strong. The Scot was favourite for the junior world time-trial title last September, leading at the checkpoint before a slipped pedal on the final climb dropped her to fifth, and she arrives on the back of a breakthrough road season and her first professional win. Ferguson is the most decorated of the four — junior world champion in both the road race and the time trial — but she hasn’t raced since crashing out of the Giro at the end of May.
Welsh interest rests chiefly with Awen Roberts (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation), the Carmarthenshire rider fresh from a stage win at this spring’s Peak 2 Day, in a field where the host nation will have plenty to cheer.
U23 men
With last year’s winner Callum Thornley moved up to the elite race, Ben Wiggins (Hagens Berman Jayco) starts as favourite — the 2025 runner-up, a proven time triallist with a powerful track engine, and the last man down the ramp. A win would settle a frustrating record: he has finished second in the under-23 time trial in each of the last two years. His form lines are mixed, though. He was fourth in the Tour of Rhodes prologue in the spring but only 35th in the closing time trial of the Giro d’Italia Next Gen four days ago. However, a one-off time trial on a testers’ course is a very different prospect to racing against the clock at the end of a tough stage race.
Elliot Rowe (Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development) is the obvious challenger, and arrives with the sharpest recent form: third here last year, and the fastest of the British under-23s on that Giro Next Gen time trial (12th) in a race he finished sixth overall. Sebastian Grindley(Lidl–Trek Future Racing) is more than an outside bet — he was fourth in this race in 2025, ahead of Tomos Pattinson (EF Education–Aevolo), the 2024 champion who slipped to fifth and will want the rematch. Joshua Golliker (EF Education–Aevolo), a powerful all-rounder, completes the group of credible names.
For the domestic time-trial following, Jamie Whitcher (Hubo–Scott Cycling Team) is the name to find. A prolific winner on the domestic time trialling calendar who has finished eighth and eleventh at this championship, he has spent 2026 racing the road for his Belgian Continental team, but the engine that won the Azets Spring Classic time trial is well suited to a flat power course like this one.
Elite women
Zoe Bäckstedt (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto) is the favourite, and on these roads the home support will be loud. The Welsh rider is the defending champion, the reigning under-23 world time-trial champion, and in form: she won the opening time trial at the Vuelta a Extremadura in March and was runner-up in the Tour de Suisse Women time trial this month, 11 seconds behind world time trial champion Marlen Reusser over 23.7 kilometres. She has rarely looked stronger.
The most obvious threat is Anna Henderson (Lidl–Trek), the 2024 national champion and Olympic time-trial silver medallist who pushed Bäckstedt to within 20 seconds last year and rode the faster second half. Anna Morris (Private Member), the Welsh individual-pursuit world champion and world-record holder, finished fourth in 2025, won the opening time trial at the Peak 2 Day in March, and brings the kind of sustained power this course rewards; she is the home pick beyond Bäckstedt. Pfeiffer Georgi (Team Picnic PostNL), third last year, and Claire Steels (Movistar Team), a national runner-up in 2024, round out the established contenders.
The outside bet for a podium is Isabel Sharp (Handsling Alba Development Road Team). The former Lidl–Trek rider, rebuilding after a difficult spell, finished sixth at the EPZ Omloop van Borsele in April — a flat Dutch test won by WorldTour rider Cédrine Kerbaol — at nearly 44 kilometres per hour. On a similarly honest course, she has the form to trouble the names above her on the seedings. Under-23 time trial champion Millie Couzens, the current national road champ, is another rider that should not be underestimated.
Elite men
The story starts with an absence. Josh Tarling (NetCompany Ineos) is the finest time triallist Britain has produced in a generation — European champion at 19, and the elite national champion in 2023 and 2024 — but he will not be on the start ramp. The Aberaeron rider broke his collarbone at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in mid-June and, after surgery, his team has ruled him out of both the championships and the Tour de France.
In his absence, Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) is the clear favourite, and he arrives with form to match the billing. The three-time champion — 2021, 2022 and 2025 — has been the standout British time triallist in the WorldTour this spring, fourth in the UAE Tour time trial in February and eighth in the opening test at Tirreno-Adriatico, his team’s fastest man on both days. He took last year’s title by just under half a minute, quickest at every checkpoint; a fourth jersey is well within reach. His most credible challenger is Samuel Watson (NetCompany Ineos), the reigning national road race champion and runner-up in this time trial last year, with prologue speed to draw on too — he opened the season by winning the Tour Down Under prologue in January, edging Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) by half a second. Vernon, fourth here last year, has otherwise spent 2026 sprinting, with stage wins at the Tour Down Under, the Volta a Catalunya and the Région Pays de la Loire Tour, but that top-end speed suits a flat course. Max Walker (EF Education–EasyPost), fifth last year and runner-up to Tarling in 2024, completes the group of established names.
Two names sit just outside that group. Callum Thornley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) is a time triallist by trade — the reigning under-23 national champion, a stage-race time-trial winner and a top-five finisher at last year’s under-23 Worlds — stepping up to the elite championship for the first time, though his neo-pro season has so far been built around road racing rather than the clock. Ben Turner (NetCompany Ineos), a powerful classics rouleur and a Grand Tour stage winner last year, is no specialist against the watch but has the engine to go well on a course that rewards sustained power.
For the domestic audience, Michael Gill (DAS Richardsons) is the first of the home-scene names off in the leading wave and the rider to measure the domestic field against. Matthew Rossiter (HUUB WattShop), the former Olympic rower who led after the opening lap in 2025 before fading, opens the domestic wave and is always worth the early benchmark. Charlie Tanfield, the privateer former Commonwealth team-pursuit gold medallist, is another to watch among the unattached riders.
Provisional startlists
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