Naturalised-British Swede talks to VeloNation about his dual role as boss and rider of Team UK Youth
During his professional career, Magnus Bäckstedt was one of the most unmistakeable figures in the peloton; at 6’4” tall, he towered above most of his teammates until his retirement at the beginning of 2009. The first great win of his career came in the 1998 Tour de France, as he outsprinted the breakaway into the Burgundy town of Autun, but his crowning achievement was his victory in a similar small group sprint in the Vélodrome of Roubaix in 2004.
The big Swede is back in the peloton now though, at the head of the UK Youth team, set up to raise awareness of the charity that works to help the young people of Britain to raise their aspirations and help them to realise their potential.
It may seem strange that a Swede is heading up the team of a UK-based charity but, while he was born in the Scandinavian country – and raced under a Swedish license for his entire pro career – Bäckstedt has become naturalised British, having been based in Wales since marrying former British champion Megan Hughes.
“It’s been eleven years now,” he explained to VeloNation recently, “and I’ve lived in Wales for about seven I think; so, I’m as Welsh as I’m ever going to get!
“It’s fantastic training round there, you know, I can’t fault it.”
With cycling far from a mainstream sport in the UK, it might seem unusual for a charity to be sponsoring a team. Bäckstedt’s involvement in the project came about after contact from UK Youth’s president, former Formula 1 World champion and Indy Car World Series winner Nigel Mansell OBE.
“It’s a bit of a funny way how that came about,” said Bäckstedt. “Nigel Mansell called me up a couple of years ago – or actually the beginning of last year – and wanted me to do a charity ride with him, all around the country, visiting all the UK Youth, youth achievement foundations and youth clubs and so on.
“I thought it sounds like a good thing,” he continued. “I was retired and I thought ‘thirteen days on a bike, a hundred miles a day, that’ll get me fit and it sounds like a good laugh.’ Then after that, Nigel came up and said ‘look, I really believe in the message that cycling is carrying and we can promote the charity with a cycling team, so how do you fancy heading it up and putting it together?’
“I said ‘you know what yeah, but if I’m going to be doing that I’m going to be back on the bike and doing it,’” Bäckstedt added. “It was good to get back on the bike and I have to say that I’m enjoying it more now than I probably did in the last four or five years as a professional on the continent. I’ve really, really had a good time.”
Bäckstedt’s involvement with the charity does not stop with his setting up with the cycling team, however. “I’m the vice president of the charity as well,” he said, “so it’s with pride that I’m wearing the logo.”
UK Youth might be a small British team, but it has ambition to make its presence felt in the domestic calendar. After a strong showing in the Halfords Tour Series of criteriums in 2011, Bäckstedt has his heights set even higher in 2012.
“Our main goal for next year is to really leave a mark in the Tour Series, and the Premier Calendar,” he explained. “We’ve got ourselves a UCI [Continental] license so what we’ll do is head out to Europe and do some racing out there – try and get our legs going properly – and we’ll see what happens.”
Although he runs the team though, there’s no way that Bäckstedt will be taking a backseat once the racing starts.
“I’ve got a DS [Directeur Sportif Dave Povall – ed] that I’ve trained up over the last four years,” said Bäckstedt. “He takes care of all that and from now on, I’m kind of the big boss and I’m the rider, so I kind of get both ends of the scale. I get stuff reported to me, what’s going on in the team, and apart from that I ride my bike.
“I’m loving the way we’ve got it set up now,” he added.