The Montreal World Championships had begun perfectly for Marlen Reusser (Switzerland), who defended her ITT title in style, but the rest of the week felt like a repeat of Kigali 2025 for the Swiss rouleur who 'only' took bronze in the TTT Mixed Relay and then missed the crucial attack in the road race. She was on the back foot for the rest of the race, chasing in vain to finish just off the podium.
"Last year was the same: I could win the ITT, super cool, then we had a mechanical in the Mixed, just like this year when we came third. I was in fantastic shape [for the road race] last year, made a big mistake and I came ninth," said Reusser in the mixed zone while newly-crowned World Champion Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and medallists Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) were celebrating on the podium.
"This year again, I make a mistake … I’m 35 now, I’m not going to do it ten times more, so I’m quite disappointed, to be honest."
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The mistake Reusser described took place when Vollering attacked solo for the first time with 38km to go. The Swiss rider had run out of food and gone to the team car to stock up when the top favourite made her move.
"In the crucial moment, I was out of position; I was busy with my feeding. Incredibly stupid; that was my big mistake of the day. And my fourth place is what I got for racing for first place. I had the feeling I was the only one that really went for the first place," said Reusser.
"But I thought, let’s go for first, and there were a lot of people racing for second. It’s right after the race; it’s just what’s in me now. I need to watch it back. But my feeling is, like, we raced for second."
Reusser was disappointed with the lack of cooperation in the chase group behind Vollering. In a group of eight riders that also included Juliette Berthet, Célia Gery, Maëva Squiban (all France), Niewiadoma-Phinney, Włodarczyk (both Poland), Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), and Longo Borghini, so-called ‘group 2 syndrome’ went into full effect, and Reusser was doing the vast majority of the chase work.
"Puck was the only one who didn’t have to pull, and she tried to disrupt, which is fine, I think. But everybody else had a big reason to pull," she said,.
"Yes, it was my choice, my mistake, but I know that if I’m just sitting on, Demi will have won. If you give her too much of a gap, the race is over. So I started pulling, I showed full commitment, and the others benefited from that. I pulled and pulled, everybody attacked, and it was impossible to follow all the attacks."
On the final two laps, after Vollering, Niewiadoma-Phinney, and Longo Borghini had gone up ahead, Reusser kept pushing, hoping in vain that the riders ahead of her would stop going all-out.
"I knew it’s not so much about my effort, more about what happens in front. I knew it was really worth it to just keep riding," she added.
"The situation would have been much better if they had still been with three and played more. I knew that if they looked at each other, slowing each other down, then I can come back. I kind of lost it [the race] before, but it wasn’t over, it just depended on how it went in the front. But it was stupid to end up in this situation at all."
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