Road World Championships: Marlen Reusser delivers in Kigali to take first elite women's time trial title

Marlen Reusser of Switzerland produced a near perfect effort to take the first rainbow jersey of the 2025 Road World Championships in Kigali in the elite women’s individual time trial on Sunday.

Three-time European champion, the world title has eluded Reusser throughout her career, finishing second twice, but she claimed her first title in the discipline in which she specialises, delivering a strong, consistent ride throughout the 31.2km course.

Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands) led the race for a long time and held on for second place and silver in an incredible comeback year, five years after taking the title herself, with her Dutch teammate Demi Vollering rounding out the podium, and taking the bronze medal.

Speaking after her victory, Reusser commented on her three podium visits without having gained a win, up to this point.

"I have the feeling I was like, ten times on the podium. I can almost not believe it," she said. "I know it's real and it happened, but I tried so many times and it didn't work out. And now, I think I made it, and it's really special, but it was such an effort. It's more than 15 minutes ago, but I think I need to let it settle."

The hard course in Kigali saw riders struggle on the climbs, but Reusser prevailed.

"This course, you could really, like, pace it polarised. So, I went really hard on the climbs, and then the final climb, maybe even I went too hard in the beginning, so I was full of lactic acid but I think it was the right way to pace it and I think also I have an advantage, I'm quite a heavy rider, so without a lot of effort, I still go down pretty fast, and then I can put all my effort in the climb. So I did this, and it was super hard. It was so hard. But yeah, I made it."

How it unfolded

The event kicked off on Sunday morning with the first rider rolling down the start ramp Rwanda’s national champion in the discipline, Xaveline Nirere, in warm and dry conditions. She was able to hold off the next rider behind her on course to set the first time to beat at 50:08, and went into the hot seat, though her tenure was short-lived, as Zhang Hao of China supplanted her, taking a significant chunk of 2:44 off the time of the local rider. Zhang was followed by Norway’s Sigrid Haugset.

With a slightly reduced field of 44 riders setting off at intervals of two and a half minutes, the talent came thick and fast and there were several changes of personnel in the hot seat. World champion in the discipline in 2020, Anna van der Breggen put herself in contention for a medal with the first stand-out performance of the race. She obliterated the time of Haugset with a measured ride to set the new high bar, taking another 2:23 off the previous best time and moving into the hot seat with 20 more riders still to stop the clocks on their efforts.

Successive riders came and went with the likes of Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland), Cédrine Kerbaol (France) and Mireia Benito (Spain) unable to improve upon the time of 44:01.23 set by Van der Breggen. The closest rider to the veteran Dutchwoman with just a handful of riders remaining was Katrine Aalerud of Norway, who rode an excellent race to finish just 32 seconds behind Van der Breggen to move into provisional second place.

The pre-race favourites Reusser, Vollering and the USA’s Chloe Dygert were still out on course though, and Reusser appeared in control approaching the final cobbled climb of the Côte de Kimihurura, catching and passing the rider ahead of her. She held her form all the way to the finish line to improve upon van der Breggen’s time by almost 52 seconds, and no other riders were able to improve upon her time of 43:09.34.

Australia’s Brodie Chapman put in a strong effort and sat in third position for a while, and France’s Juliette Labous completed her ride 1:32 down on Reusser’s time. It was not to be Chloe Dygert’s day however – she completed her effort in provisional eighth place. The last rider to arrive, Demi Vollering, pushed all the way to the finish, to take bronze for the Netherlands, in a day that belonged to Reusser and to Switzerland.

For Reusser, who has long been chasing this title, pulling on rainbows was a special moment.

"I'm so glad. I'm so happy, and especially also, I know everybody says this. I mean it from deep down in my heart, so many people work with me so much to do this, some since so many years, with such a lot of passion and love, we do it together and that finally I can kind of reward it," she said.

"I don't know if this is really something you should say, but it feels a little bit like this. So it's really the goal we worked for, and that I can achieve it now makes me happy for myself, but even more for the whole group that is around me, not only in the sport; even if the sport would not be here, I'm really full of love for these people, and it's so nice that we can do this together."

Results

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