Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta: Marlen Reusser wins stage 1

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Less than a week after she was wearing the leader’s jersey at the Simac Ladies Tour, Swiss national champion Marlen Reusser (Ale BTC Ljubljana) won the opening stage of the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta from a solo break in A Rua. Coryn Rivera (Team DSM) won the chase-group sprint for second place ahead of Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) in third, Pauliena Rooijakkers (Liv Racing) finished fourth.

Reusser was one of four riders remaining from an original group of six when she attacked her breakaway companions with just over 2km to go and used her time trialling skills to stay away until the line. 

The peloton finished 1:50 behind Reusser with Elisa Balsamo (Valcar Travel & Service) beating Anna Henderson (Jumbo Visma) to the line.

“I'm so tired. I thought I'm so tired of Holland, of Simac Ladies Tour. I was two days in school yesterday, the whole day travel,” said Reusser. “I thought we have a rest day today, it starts tomorrow - I had it wrong in my head. I was like, 'yeah I can do whatever’ so I just thought I go for it and for a breakaway. 

“I just pedalled a lot and we kept away and I felt the others don't have that much so I just tried to go and it worked out. I didn't want to sprint against Coryn Rivera so I tried my luck and it worked out. It's incredible.”

After losing the lead of Simac Ladies Tour to Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SD Worx) last week, Reusser claimed not to be looking to defend her GC lead at the Challenge by la Vuelta. 

“Now I’m in front but it was not my dream to have the leader's jersey again, it's a lot of work,” said Reusser. “Yeah it's nice but I think I'm not the fastest tomorrow. Let's see. I think I'm really happy with having won a stage, I'm fine, let's see.”

Reusser now leads the overall classification by 26 seconds ahead of Coryn Rivera (Team DSM) and 28 seconds ahead of Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) ahead of the stage 2 mountain time trial on Friday.

How it unfolded

The hilly 118.7km first stage of four started with a 15km descent which by the bottom had already stretched out the peloton before a short climb created even more splits. 

On the main climb of the day, with 60km to go, a group of five riders broke away from the peloton. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Liv Racing), Marlen Reusser (Ale BTC Ljubljana), Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM), Lucy Kennedy (Team BikeExchange), Erica Magnaldi (Ceratizit WNT) gained 20 seconds on the peloton and a few kilometres later were joined by Coryn Rivera (Team DSM). 

At the top of the climb, with 50km to go, the gap for the leaders had extended to 1:55. Kennedy and Magnaldi were distanced on the descent leaving Rivera, Chabbey, Reusser, and Rooijakkers at the front. 

SD Worx, who missed the move, were pulling on the front with the world champion, Anna van der Breggen, on the front however the gap stayed around the two minute mark. With 20km to go the gap went out to 2:04 as Rivera, who had the best chance out of the group in a sprint, started to miss turns in an effort to save her legs. 

With 15km to go it was clear that the breakaway would make it to the line with the gap between the front group and the much-reduced peloton still sitting at over two minutes. Movistar were working hard on the front and managed to bring the gap down slightly but with under 10km to go and a gap over just under 2 minutes the breakaway looked certain to make it to the line.  

With 5.4km to go Chabbey attacked her breakaway companions however Rooijakkers quickly closed her down bringing the group back together. 1km later, however, Chabbey attacked again and got a gap but it was Reusser this time who brought her compatriot back to the group. 

With 2.2km to go Reusser put in her own attack which the Swiss national time trial champion managed to hold. Behind, the three remaining riders were looking to each other to chase as Reusser extended her gap. In the peloton behind, Movistar were still chasing but the gap to the four leaders remained at 1:50 with less than 1km to go.