2026 National Time Trial Championships: report and results
Zoe Bäckstedt defends her elite women's title at the head of an all-Welsh podium, and Ethan Hayter wins a fourth elite men's national time-trial title, as the National Road Championships open at Lampeter. In the under-23 races, Ben Wiggins ends two years as runner-up to win the men's time trial and Erin Boothman wins the women's by almost two minutes — with a time that would have medalled among the elites.
A new, flatter circuit at Lampeter promised a test of sustained power, and on a hot afternoon four national time-trial titles went to the riders who passed it most convincingly. Zoe Bäckstedt defended her elite women’s title on home Welsh roads, leading a Welsh one-two-three with Anna Morris and her own sister Elynor. In the elite men’s race, Ethan Hayter was fastest at every check to win by a minute and a half, a fourth national title and a second in succession.
The under-23 races told their own stories. Ben Wiggins ended two seasons as the men’s runner-up by winning by more than a minute. And Erin Boothman produced the standout ride of the day, winning the women’s race by almost two minutes — quick enough that her time would have taken bronze in the elite event run a couple of hours earlier.
Featured image: Olly Hassall/SWpix.com
Reports
U23 men
For two seasons Ben Wiggins had finished second in the under-23 national time trial. At Lampeter he settled it, winning the opening event of the National Road Championships by more than a minute and setting the fastest time on both laps of the 25.6-kilometre course. The Hagens Berman Jayco rider stopped the clock in 29:02, an average of 52.9 km/h, and went quicker on his second lap than his first — 14:28 to 14:34 — a negative split that underlined how comfortably the title was won.
The fight for the rest of the podium was far tighter. Henry Hobbs produced the second-fastest ride of the day for Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development, finishing 1:20 down. Just over three seconds behind him came Finlay Tarling, third for NSN Development Team. Tarling had set the fastest opening lap of anyone bar the winner — a shade under 15 minutes — but lost ground on the second circuit, and Hobbs’s steadier ride edged him for silver.
Ben Wiggins (Hagens Berman Jayco). Image: Olly Hassall/SWpix.com
Several of the riders expected to contest the medals were not in the conversation. Elliot Rowe, third here a year ago and among the favourites, could manage only eleventh for the same Visma development team; Joshua Golliker (EF Education–Aevolo) finished twenty-fifth; and Sebastian Grindley (Lidl–Trek Future Racing) did not finish.
The standout ride from the home scene belonged to Jack Baldie. Seventh for Pronto Bikes, he was the leading rider off the British domestic club and elite scene, on a course that suited his strengths: a time-trial specialist who favours flat, fast roads, the first-year under-23 edged Seth Jackson (Hubo-Scott Cycling Team) — who had led the timesheet earlier in the day before the seeded riders arrived — by a tenth of a second. It was Baldie’s 19th birthday.
Ben Wiggins (Hagens Berman Jayco) wins the U23 Men Individual Time Trial, Henry Hobbs (Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development) second and Finlay Tarling (NSN Development Team) third. Image: Olly Hassall/SWpix.com
Higher up, the new INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy — Britain’s first men’s UCI Continental team since 2024 — placed two riders in the top six, Mattie Dodd fifth and Dylan Sage sixth, the latter the reigning national junior time-trial champion.
“I was second twice as a junior, and I’ve been second twice as an under-23 so far,” Wiggins said. Settling it at Lampeter had been, he explained, “one of my biggest goals this season” — a deliberate staging post on the road to the under-23 worlds in September. “If I want to go there and be competitive, fighting for medals, I really need to get the job done, and start getting the job done at the Nationals.”
Where others wilted on the second lap, Wiggins was largely untroubled. “A lot of us boys had just come out of the Giro Next Gen,” he said, “so I did a lot of heat preparation for that race. I didn’t expect it to be this hot, but I think it carried over well.”
“It’s my first year, so I came in with no pressure, no expectations,” Hobbs said. “I just tried to keep it nice and even throughout.” The course helped: “It’s really rolly, and the way out and the way back are so different with speed and terrain. But it suited me quite well — not too heavy.”
Elite women
Zoe Bäckstedt delivered the win her form demanded. The CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto rider defended her elite women’s title on home Welsh roads with the fastest time on both laps of the Lampeter course, covering the 25.6 kilometres in 32:46 to win by 22 seconds.
There was little mystery to it. Bäckstedt arrived as the reigning under-23 world time-trial champion and the form rider of the field: a stage win and a time-trial second place at the Tour de Suisse Women this month, beaten there only by the world champion Marlen Reusser, followed a victory in the opening test at the Vuelta a Extremadura in March. Her first elite national title last year, also on Welsh roads, already looks like a staging post rather than a peak.
If that win was expected, Anna Morris’s silver enhanced the story for the home crowd. The Welsh rider is a track pursuiter by trade — an Olympic medallist and the reigning individual-pursuit world and European champion, with a clutch of world records to her name — who came to the sport late, while studying medicine, and rides the road without a trade team. On a flat course built for her kind of sustained power, she conceded all her time to Bäckstedt on the opening lap, then matched the champion almost exactly on the second — 16:35 to 16:34 — to finish 22 seconds down and 43 seconds clear of everyone else. It was the best ride of her career at these championships, a place up on the fourth she managed a year ago.
Third place kept it in the family. Elynor Bäckstedt, Zoe’s older sister, took bronze for UAE Team ADQ a year after lining up here and failing to start. The elder Bäckstedt — a junior Gent–Wevelgem winner and world-championship medallist who spent five seasons at Lidl–Trek before joining UAE Team ADQ — came home a minute and five seconds down to complete a Bäckstedt one-three – and a Welsh one-two-three – on home roads.
Behind the podium, Becky Storrie (Team Picnic PostNL Raisin) was fourth and Izzy Sharp (Handsling Alba Development Road Team), tipped beforehand as an outside podium contender, the best-placed rider from a British team in fifth. Pfeiffer Georgi, third here a year ago, took sixth, while Anna Henderson, the 2024 champion and Olympic time-trial silver medallist, who pushed Bäckstedt to within 19 seconds last year, could finish only eighth, nearly two minutes back.
Zoe Backstedt (CANYON // SRAM Zondacrypto) wins the Elite Women Individual Time Trial to become National Champion, Anna Morris (Private Member) second, Elynor Backstedt (UAE Team ADQ) third. Image: Olly Hassall/SWpix.com
“The heat made it 10 times harder than I expected,” Bäckstedt said of a course she called “classic Welsh roads” — fast, narrow, in one place running straight through a farm entrance. “I’m just glad I came home with a jersey.”
“Zoe’s super tough to beat — she’s so strong, and she’s had some great performances recently,” said Morris, who felt she had drawn the most from her day. “I executed it as well as I could today, and I got everything out.”
The podium was entirely Welsh — Morris and both Bäckstedts. “An all-Welsh podium, at a home Nationals, it’s super special,” she said. “The Bäckstedts are such strong riders, so sharing the podium with them is really nice.”
U23 women
Erin Boothman turned the under-23 women’s time trial into a procession. The 19-year-old Scot won by almost two minutes, quickest on both laps, and produced the number that reframed the day: her 33:37 over the 25.6-kilometre course would have been good enough for bronze in the elite women’s race run earlier, around 14 seconds inside the time that gave Elynor Bäckstedt third — and Boothman set it later in the afternoon, as the heat built.
This was her first National Road Championships, and the jersey is the least of what she has won lately. Boothman is one of the most decorated juniors Britain has produced on the track: two golds at the 2025 Junior World Championships, in the Madison and the team pursuit, three European junior titles the same season, and a Scottish individual-pursuit record over the winter. In February she went to the senior British Track Championships and won the elimination race ahead of Anna Morris and Katie Archibald — Olympians both.
The road has caught up fast. Signed by Liv AlUla Jayco for their development team this year, with a place in the WorldTour squad waiting in 2027, she spent the spring racing in Europe and, in May, took her first professional win at the Festival Elsy Jacobs à Luxembourg, holding off a breakaway in the wet with a sprint launched from 200 metres out. Not long before all this she had deferred an unconditional place to read pharmacy at Strathclyde, to see how far the bike would take her. On this evidence, some distance.
Behind her, the podium had a Welsh tint of its own. Awen Roberts (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation), a stage winner at the Peak 2 Day in March, was second and the leading home rider, with Abigail Miller and Eilidh Shaw giving the UAE Development Team third and fourth. Lily Martin (Loughborough Lightning) was fifth – the best of the domestic-based riders – and Carys Lloyd (Movistar) sixth.
Imogen Wolff’s day has to be read in context. Fourth here a year ago and widely tipped beforehand, she finished seventh, her second lap drifting well behind her first. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider had said on Instagram earlier in the month that she was recovering from concussion after a collision with a car in training, glad to have walked away, with recovery rather than racing the priority.
Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco) wins the Under-23 Women Individual Time Trial, Awen Roberts (CANYON // SRAM zondacrypto Generation) second and Abigail Miller (UAE Development Team) third. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Boothman had gone against the morning’s caution. “There was lots of talk of taking it easier on the first lap,” she said, “but I actually went out pretty hot, and then just tried to hold on on the second lap.” The win came off a broken run-in, too. “I maybe didn’t have a great run into it,” she said. “I had some illness and a bit of a rest mid-season, just because it’d been a busy season.”
The course suited her better than she had feared. Studying it beforehand, she had worried it would be technical — narrower and twistier than the GPX suggested — but the closed roads opened it up. “You could really use the whole road,” she said, “and actually it was just a lot of powerful straights and flats, which was quite good for me. I really enjoyed it.”
Next comes a home Commonwealth Games. Boothman, from East Renfrewshire, has Glasgow 2026 as “a big target for me,” with a holding camp to follow after a few more road races. On this evidence, she arrives in form.
Elite men
Ethan Hayter closed the day as expected, and then some. The Soudal Quick-Step rider was fastest at every checkpoint and won the elite men’s time trial by a minute and a half, his 44:11 for the three-lap, 38.4-kilometre course — at 52.2 km/h — worth a fourth national title and a second in succession.
There was never much doubt. Hayter is one of the most accomplished riders Britain has against the clock: an Olympic silver medallist and multiple track world champion who has spent six seasons turning that engine into a road career, first at Ineos and, since 2025, at Soudal Quick-Step. He arrived as reigning champion and in the form to back it, with top placings in the time trials at the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico earlier in the year. A flat, fast parcours could hardly have suited him better, and he rode accordingly — quickest through the opening lap, quickest at lap two, never headed.
Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step). Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
What he did not have to do was beat the strongest field the entry list had promised. The elite men’s time trial was thinned out before it began, most conspicuously by the absence of Josh Tarling, from Aberaeron in the same county and the man most likely to have pushed Hayter on home roads, ruled out after surgery on a broken collarbone earlier in the month. He was not the only notable name missing. Samuel Watson, the reigning road race champion and runner-up in this event last year, did not start; nor did Max Walker, Ben Turner, Callum Thornley or Michael Gill, all among the riders flagged as contenders or outside bets beforehand.
That is no slight on the result. Connor Swift made the most of the opening, riding to silver for NetCompany Ineos at a minute and a half. Third went to Josh Charlton — the 2023 under-23 national time-trial champion, and since then the individual pursuit world champion and world record holder on the track — giving the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy its best ride yet at these championships so far and underlining the pedigree Britain’s new Continental team has gathered in its first season.
Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) was fourth, a place clear of Jack Brough and Team Jayco AlUla’s Finlay Pickering. The leading rider from the domestic scene was Matthew Rossiter, seventh for HUUB WattShop and the quickest of those racing outside the WorldTour and Continental ranks.
Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) wins the Elite Men Individual Time Trial, Connor Swift (NetCompany Ineos) second and Josh Charlton (Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy) third. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Afterwards, the talk turned to the record. Hayter’s fourth title moves him within sight of the six shared by Stuart Dangerfield and Alex Dowsett, though he was not about to claim it as a goal. “It’s going to be quite difficult,” he said. “There are some good young guys.” He was generous, too, on the rider who wasn’t there, calling Tarling’s absence — and that of several others — a shame for the contest.
The heat, rather than any rival, was the obstacle. “I benefited from the training I do in the heat,” he said. “I couldn’t go any faster, but I wasn’t really out of breath, if that makes sense. It was just about fighting the heat and going as fast as you could.” On a flat course in those conditions, survival was the watchword.
A new, flatter circuit at Lampeter promised a test of sustained power, and on a hot afternoon four national time-trial titles went to the riders who passed it most convincingly. Zoe Bäckstedt defended her elite women’s title on home Welsh roads, leading a Welsh one-two-three with Anna Morris and her own sister Elynor. In the elite men’s race, Ethan Hayter was fastest at every check to win by a minute and a half, a fourth national title and a second in succession.
The under-23 races told their own stories. Ben Wiggins ended two seasons as the men’s runner-up by winning by more than a minute. And Erin Boothman produced the standout ride of the day, winning the women’s race by almost two minutes — quick enough that her time would have taken bronze in the elite event run a couple of hours earlier.
Featured image: Olly Hassall/SWpix.com
Reports
U23 men
For two seasons Ben Wiggins had finished second in the under-23 national time trial. At Lampeter he settled it, winning the opening event of the National Road Championships by more than a minute and setting the fastest time on both laps of the 25.6-kilometre course. The Hagens Berman Jayco rider stopped the clock in 29:02, an average of 52.9 km/h, and went quicker on his second lap than his first — 14:28 to 14:34 — a negative split that underlined how comfortably the title was won.
The fight for the rest of the podium was far tighter. Henry Hobbs produced the second-fastest ride of the day for Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development, finishing 1:20 down. Just over three seconds behind him came Finlay Tarling, third for NSN Development Team. Tarling had set the fastest opening lap of anyone bar the winner — a shade under 15 minutes — but lost ground on the second circuit, and Hobbs’s steadier ride edged him for silver.
Several of the riders expected to contest the medals were not in the conversation. Elliot Rowe, third here a year ago and among the favourites, could manage only eleventh for the same Visma development team; Joshua Golliker (EF Education–Aevolo) finished twenty-fifth; and Sebastian Grindley (Lidl–Trek Future Racing) did not finish.
The standout ride from the home scene belonged to Jack Baldie. Seventh for Pronto Bikes, he was the leading rider off the British domestic club and elite scene, on a course that suited his strengths: a time-trial specialist who favours flat, fast roads, the first-year under-23 edged Seth Jackson (Hubo-Scott Cycling Team) — who had led the timesheet earlier in the day before the seeded riders arrived — by a tenth of a second. It was Baldie’s 19th birthday.
Higher up, the new INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy — Britain’s first men’s UCI Continental team since 2024 — placed two riders in the top six, Mattie Dodd fifth and Dylan Sage sixth, the latter the reigning national junior time-trial champion.
“I was second twice as a junior, and I’ve been second twice as an under-23 so far,” Wiggins said. Settling it at Lampeter had been, he explained, “one of my biggest goals this season” — a deliberate staging post on the road to the under-23 worlds in September. “If I want to go there and be competitive, fighting for medals, I really need to get the job done, and start getting the job done at the Nationals.”
Where others wilted on the second lap, Wiggins was largely untroubled. “A lot of us boys had just come out of the Giro Next Gen,” he said, “so I did a lot of heat preparation for that race. I didn’t expect it to be this hot, but I think it carried over well.”
“It’s my first year, so I came in with no pressure, no expectations,” Hobbs said. “I just tried to keep it nice and even throughout.” The course helped: “It’s really rolly, and the way out and the way back are so different with speed and terrain. But it suited me quite well — not too heavy.”
Elite women
Zoe Bäckstedt delivered the win her form demanded. The CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto rider defended her elite women’s title on home Welsh roads with the fastest time on both laps of the Lampeter course, covering the 25.6 kilometres in 32:46 to win by 22 seconds.
There was little mystery to it. Bäckstedt arrived as the reigning under-23 world time-trial champion and the form rider of the field: a stage win and a time-trial second place at the Tour de Suisse Women this month, beaten there only by the world champion Marlen Reusser, followed a victory in the opening test at the Vuelta a Extremadura in March. Her first elite national title last year, also on Welsh roads, already looks like a staging post rather than a peak.
If that win was expected, Anna Morris’s silver enhanced the story for the home crowd. The Welsh rider is a track pursuiter by trade — an Olympic medallist and the reigning individual-pursuit world and European champion, with a clutch of world records to her name — who came to the sport late, while studying medicine, and rides the road without a trade team. On a flat course built for her kind of sustained power, she conceded all her time to Bäckstedt on the opening lap, then matched the champion almost exactly on the second — 16:35 to 16:34 — to finish 22 seconds down and 43 seconds clear of everyone else. It was the best ride of her career at these championships, a place up on the fourth she managed a year ago.
Third place kept it in the family. Elynor Bäckstedt, Zoe’s older sister, took bronze for UAE Team ADQ a year after lining up here and failing to start. The elder Bäckstedt — a junior Gent–Wevelgem winner and world-championship medallist who spent five seasons at Lidl–Trek before joining UAE Team ADQ — came home a minute and five seconds down to complete a Bäckstedt one-three – and a Welsh one-two-three – on home roads.
Behind the podium, Becky Storrie (Team Picnic PostNL Raisin) was fourth and Izzy Sharp (Handsling Alba Development Road Team), tipped beforehand as an outside podium contender, the best-placed rider from a British team in fifth. Pfeiffer Georgi, third here a year ago, took sixth, while Anna Henderson, the 2024 champion and Olympic time-trial silver medallist, who pushed Bäckstedt to within 19 seconds last year, could finish only eighth, nearly two minutes back.
“The heat made it 10 times harder than I expected,” Bäckstedt said of a course she called “classic Welsh roads” — fast, narrow, in one place running straight through a farm entrance. “I’m just glad I came home with a jersey.”
“Zoe’s super tough to beat — she’s so strong, and she’s had some great performances recently,” said Morris, who felt she had drawn the most from her day. “I executed it as well as I could today, and I got everything out.”
The podium was entirely Welsh — Morris and both Bäckstedts. “An all-Welsh podium, at a home Nationals, it’s super special,” she said. “The Bäckstedts are such strong riders, so sharing the podium with them is really nice.”
U23 women
Erin Boothman turned the under-23 women’s time trial into a procession. The 19-year-old Scot won by almost two minutes, quickest on both laps, and produced the number that reframed the day: her 33:37 over the 25.6-kilometre course would have been good enough for bronze in the elite women’s race run earlier, around 14 seconds inside the time that gave Elynor Bäckstedt third — and Boothman set it later in the afternoon, as the heat built.
This was her first National Road Championships, and the jersey is the least of what she has won lately. Boothman is one of the most decorated juniors Britain has produced on the track: two golds at the 2025 Junior World Championships, in the Madison and the team pursuit, three European junior titles the same season, and a Scottish individual-pursuit record over the winter. In February she went to the senior British Track Championships and won the elimination race ahead of Anna Morris and Katie Archibald — Olympians both.
The road has caught up fast. Signed by Liv AlUla Jayco for their development team this year, with a place in the WorldTour squad waiting in 2027, she spent the spring racing in Europe and, in May, took her first professional win at the Festival Elsy Jacobs à Luxembourg, holding off a breakaway in the wet with a sprint launched from 200 metres out. Not long before all this she had deferred an unconditional place to read pharmacy at Strathclyde, to see how far the bike would take her. On this evidence, some distance.
Behind her, the podium had a Welsh tint of its own. Awen Roberts (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation), a stage winner at the Peak 2 Day in March, was second and the leading home rider, with Abigail Miller and Eilidh Shaw giving the UAE Development Team third and fourth. Lily Martin (Loughborough Lightning) was fifth – the best of the domestic-based riders – and Carys Lloyd (Movistar) sixth.
Imogen Wolff’s day has to be read in context. Fourth here a year ago and widely tipped beforehand, she finished seventh, her second lap drifting well behind her first. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider had said on Instagram earlier in the month that she was recovering from concussion after a collision with a car in training, glad to have walked away, with recovery rather than racing the priority.
Boothman had gone against the morning’s caution. “There was lots of talk of taking it easier on the first lap,” she said, “but I actually went out pretty hot, and then just tried to hold on on the second lap.” The win came off a broken run-in, too. “I maybe didn’t have a great run into it,” she said. “I had some illness and a bit of a rest mid-season, just because it’d been a busy season.”
The course suited her better than she had feared. Studying it beforehand, she had worried it would be technical — narrower and twistier than the GPX suggested — but the closed roads opened it up. “You could really use the whole road,” she said, “and actually it was just a lot of powerful straights and flats, which was quite good for me. I really enjoyed it.”
Next comes a home Commonwealth Games. Boothman, from East Renfrewshire, has Glasgow 2026 as “a big target for me,” with a holding camp to follow after a few more road races. On this evidence, she arrives in form.
Elite men
Ethan Hayter closed the day as expected, and then some. The Soudal Quick-Step rider was fastest at every checkpoint and won the elite men’s time trial by a minute and a half, his 44:11 for the three-lap, 38.4-kilometre course — at 52.2 km/h — worth a fourth national title and a second in succession.
There was never much doubt. Hayter is one of the most accomplished riders Britain has against the clock: an Olympic silver medallist and multiple track world champion who has spent six seasons turning that engine into a road career, first at Ineos and, since 2025, at Soudal Quick-Step. He arrived as reigning champion and in the form to back it, with top placings in the time trials at the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico earlier in the year. A flat, fast parcours could hardly have suited him better, and he rode accordingly — quickest through the opening lap, quickest at lap two, never headed.
What he did not have to do was beat the strongest field the entry list had promised. The elite men’s time trial was thinned out before it began, most conspicuously by the absence of Josh Tarling, from Aberaeron in the same county and the man most likely to have pushed Hayter on home roads, ruled out after surgery on a broken collarbone earlier in the month. He was not the only notable name missing. Samuel Watson, the reigning road race champion and runner-up in this event last year, did not start; nor did Max Walker, Ben Turner, Callum Thornley or Michael Gill, all among the riders flagged as contenders or outside bets beforehand.
That is no slight on the result. Connor Swift made the most of the opening, riding to silver for NetCompany Ineos at a minute and a half. Third went to Josh Charlton — the 2023 under-23 national time-trial champion, and since then the individual pursuit world champion and world record holder on the track — giving the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy its best ride yet at these championships so far and underlining the pedigree Britain’s new Continental team has gathered in its first season.
Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) was fourth, a place clear of Jack Brough and Team Jayco AlUla’s Finlay Pickering. The leading rider from the domestic scene was Matthew Rossiter, seventh for HUUB WattShop and the quickest of those racing outside the WorldTour and Continental ranks.
Afterwards, the talk turned to the record. Hayter’s fourth title moves him within sight of the six shared by Stuart Dangerfield and Alex Dowsett, though he was not about to claim it as a goal. “It’s going to be quite difficult,” he said. “There are some good young guys.” He was generous, too, on the rider who wasn’t there, calling Tarling’s absence — and that of several others — a shame for the contest.
The heat, rather than any rival, was the obstacle. “I benefited from the training I do in the heat,” he said. “I couldn’t go any faster, but I wasn’t really out of breath, if that makes sense. It was just about fighting the heat and going as fast as you could.” On a flat course in those conditions, survival was the watchword.
Results
Elite men
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