Lizzie Deignan wins the Tour de Suisse Women

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Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) won the Tour de Suisse Women, overhauling Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) on the second and final stage of the race in Frauenfeld.

Going into stage 2 with a four-second deficit on Swiss rider Chabbey, the 32-year-old targeted the intermediate sprints where she picked up five bonus seconds, finishing the race one second ahead of Chabbey.

The stage victory was contested between nine riders of a breakaway that had jumped away in the final 20 kilometres. In the sprint, and Marta Bastianelli (Alé BTC Ljubljana) beat Tereza Neumanová (Burgos Alimenta Women Cycling Sport) and Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) to win the stage.

“You know about the men’s Tour de Suisse, how much of an iconic race it is. Now we finally have a women’s race, so it is pretty special to be the first winner of it,” Deignan said after receiving the yellow jersey.

“You saw it was an exciting race, I think they should make it a bit longer next year. I would love to come back to defend this title,” she finished.

How it unfolded

The second and final stage of the women’s Tour de Suisse consisted of 11 laps of a flat circuit around Frauenfeld that would be used for the opening time trial of the men’s edition later in the day. The three intermediate sprints on the fourth, seventh, and tenth lap offered bonus seconds that would end up deciding the general classification.

After losing the sprint to Chabbey on stage 1, Deignan had promised to go for the bonus seconds to turn the GC around, and consequently, the Trek-Segafredo team kept the race together on the opening laps. Winning the first intermediate sprint ahead of teammate Lucinda Brand and Canyon-SRAM’s Alexis Ryan, Deignan picked up three bonus seconds, putting her only one second behind Chabbey.

The Swiss GC leader had crashed early in the race, and although she was able to continue the race, she could not contest the sprints. Trek-Segafredo led out Deignan again for the second intermediate sprint, and while Ryan came around to take first place, Deignan’s second place with Brand in third was enough to put the 2015 world champion into the GC lead by one second.

As Trek-Segafredo’s main goal for the stage had been accomplished, many riders now sought their fortune in attacks. The first one not to be reeled in right away was Eugénie Duval (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) who got away with 29 km to go, with Katia Ragusa (AR Monex) bridging after a while. The duo held a 14-second advantage but was eventually caught on the antepenultimate lap.

Another flurry of attacks led to a front group of eight riders with 20 km to go: Lara Vieceli (Ceratizit-WNT), Duval, Nina Buysman (Parkhotel Valkenburg), Linda Indergand (Swiss National Team), Neumanová, Bastianelli, Barnes, and Alice Maria Arzuffi (Valcar-Travel & Service) had an advantage of 30 second with two laps to go as the peloton did not get a chase organised.

Finally, Trek-Segafredo took up the responsibility, reducing the gap to 11 seconds at the start of the final lap. It was here that Chabbey attacked several times, trying to get away from the peloton and Deignan, but Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo) in particular closed down the Swiss rider’s moves each time.

In the last six kilometres, Ragusa again jumped from the peloton and bridged to the front after a two-kilometre chase while the peloton now seemed content to let the breakaway take the stage.

On the finishing straight, Neumanová opened the sprint and stayed ahead for a long time until Bastianelli came around her on the last 75 metres to take victory.

In addition to the yellow jersey for the overall win, Deignan also won the points and mountain classifications while Mikayla Harvey (Canyon-SRAM) was the best U25 rider.