The Swiss national anthem played for a second consecutive year when Marlen Reusser took the podium as the repeat winner of the elite women's time trial at the UCI Road World Championships. This time in Montréal, she also heard a chorus of 'Happy Birthday', so even if she did not defend her title, she said, "I knew that we still have something to celebrate, that was cool".
The 35-year-old also celebrated her ninth participation at the Road World Championships, where she has accumulated a bronze, two silver and now two gold medals. She said her consistency was a result of hard work, early travel to Canada and not looking at time splits.
The defending champion paced her effort perfectly despite not paying attention to her intermediate times. She was only fifth-best at the first time check crossing the first 10.7km technical section of the course, with eventual runner-up Zoe Bäckstedt (Great Britain) 10 seconds faster.
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At the second time check on the flatter part of the course around the F1 motorsports course, the Swiss rider had trimmed seven seconds off her deficit, and then in the hillier final 9km, she crushed the clock and went ahead of Bäckstedt by 40 seconds, posting a winning time of 50:24:44 over 39.2km.
"I said I didn't want to know the time checks, so I had no idea. I'm glad I didn't know, but I told the people in the car not to worry if we were a bit behind, because the first section is quite technical. I assumed I’d lose some time there," Reusser said in the post-race press conference.
"My pacing strategy was really about saving something for the second half. So yes, we knew it might play out that way. You can't let yourself get too nervous. But I'm still glad I didn't know the splits."
Arriving the second week of September for her first-ever race in Canada, Reusser won the Chrono Féminin de Gatineau in eastern Québec, a hilly 20.4km tester four days before the Worlds at nearly double the length.
She said the extra time allowed her to beat jet lag and confirm adjustments on a new Canyon TT bike, where she did wind tunnel testing in Germany a week after the Tour de France Femmes.
"It's super nice just for a last check of the processes. You do the preparation, the set up, and it gave me some relief that we were really ready and we can do this today," Reusser said in the press conference in Montréal.
"I think it's almost impossible to put the exact same position that you had on the [old] bike on a new bike. There were changes and then you need to adjust these in detail. We adjusted to perfection. But you're never gonna be perfect. We could make some improvements."
The equipment was 'perfect', so there wasn't much to do with any other tweaks, she admitted.
"To put myself in this very aero position, it doesn't cost me so much. I'm quite flexible by nature already, so I don't even train so much on my TT bike. For me, it's easy to fold. I think others have to work so much more to do that. So I'm really very blessed with this," Reusser admitted.
"I mean I train a lot, I train to get all my power values super high and nice, but I don't need to do much specifically for the TT bike."
The three-time Tour de Suisse GC winner will compete in the elite women's road race on Saturday on a completely different route. The Swiss rider called the TT course "adventurous", with its tight turns, bumpy bridges and pothole-filled, high-use urban roads.
Arriving early to Montréal allowed her to check out sections of the TT course for several days, with only one two-hour pre-ride on the official UCI calendar on Saturday.
"I checked the course on the map already when I was still in Europe and then I went actually whenever I could on the parcours because it's quite tricky. For my brain, I need time to process.
"Seeing it the first time, I'm like, whoa, because it was an adventurous parcours. A lot of different things. So I needed time to process. I really liked it. It had different parts of technical [sections]. You were not bored at any point, and this I really loved," she laughed.
"To say I would have said before, to win, I wouldn't choose this parcours. But it seemed OK."
So what about Saturday's road course, a whole different beast with circuits up Mont Royal? In her last two outings in the Worlds road race, she's finished in the top 10.
"I haven't actually ridden or even seen the course myself yet. But from what I know about it, I think it suits me very well. I have ambitions for the road race too, but at the same time, it's a very different discipline. The race is much more open, we know that from Kigali," she said, with a smile.
"We know who the favourites are, but it's not as predictable [as the ITT]."
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