The reigning Swiss road race and time trial champion, Marlen Reusser, will join the Bigla women's team for 2020, hoping that it will enable the 28-year-old to take the next step in her racing career.
Reusser won the national time trial title for the second time in her career just the day after convincingly winning the time trial title at the European Games in Minsk, Belarus, this summer.
She went on to take the national road race title, capping a highly successful June for the rider who also won the one-day Ljubljana-Domžale-Ljubljana TT race at the start of the month, and subsequently showed her improving ability against the clock with sixth place in the elite women's individual time trial at the World Championships in Yorkshire in September.
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Reusser spent the 2019 season in the colours of the UCI's World Cycling Centre team, but will now make the step up to the team that announced at the end of last month that it would be called Bigla-Katusha next season after welcoming Katusha Sports as their co-sponsor and clothing supplier for 2020.
"Bigla is based in Switzerland, my home country, with several experienced and strong riders in its ranks," said Reusser in a team press release on Monday. "I believe that Bigla has the know-how to guide athletes on their way to the top of the sport, and I'm looking forward to becoming part of this professional and well-structured working environment.
"I'm still developing as a rider, and determining where my strengths lie," she continued. "I like time trials with climbs and windy conditions, and I hope that I can improve in that discipline with the support of Bigla.
"Of course, I still have a lot to learn in road cycling, and that's also a goal for me next year, but I'm confident that Bigla will provide a solid basis for achieving this," said Reusser.
"We are very pleased that Marlen has chosen to join our team in order to continue her journey towards becoming a world-class time triallist," added team manager Thomas Campana.
"We hope, and are confident, that we can provide her with the platform to transform her into a medal winner at the Olympic Games as well as the World Championships. This is a goal that's shared by everyone on the team, and which will be taken on with great motivation from us all," he said.
