European Championships: Marlen Reusser wins women’s individual time trial

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Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) celebrated her birthday with individual time trial glory and a third win in a row at the European Road Championships, completing the flat 29.5km course in Emmen with a winning time of 35:53 and so at an impressive average of 49.3 km/h. 

The Swiss time trial specialist achieved the hat-trick ahead of Anna Henderson (Great Britain) and Christina Schweinberger, who finished 43 and 44 seconds down respectively.

“It’s really, really special and nice to win it a third time. It makes me really happy and especially you know today is my birthday,” said Reusser.

“I think for my physics it’s good [the flat course], although at the moment I can also climb very well so it doesn’t really matter, what is in favour for me is that it isn’t maybe too technical.”

It was the perfect 32nd birthday present for Reusser and marked a return to success, just a month after she climbed off  in the World Championships time trial, citing exhaustion and burnout from a long season.

Early on, Henderson knocked Audrey Cordon Ragot (France) out of the hot seat with a fantastic time of 36:36, eventually holding off the charging Schweinberger and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium).

Cordon Ragot and Kopecky would round out the top five on the day with Olympic road race champion Anna Kiesenhofer (Austria), Markus, Eugenia Bujak (Slovenia), Elinor Barker (Great Britain) and Valeriya Kononenko (Ukraine) completing the top ten.

Reusser set off last in the 30-ride field as the big favourite for the European title having won both the 2021 and 2022 editions of the race, but passed the first intermediate time check one second down on the time set by Schweinberger.

However normal service was resumed at the second intermediate time check which came after 23 km of all-out riding, as Reusser had built a huge lead and now had only six kilometres left to navigate with a 27-second advantage over the Austrian and 33 over Henderson.

By the time the Swiss rider reached the tunnel preceding the finish and passed Riejanne Markus (Netherlands), who finished seventh on the day, it was clear she had only extended her lead and was en route to a third European title.

This is Reusser’s eighth victory of the season in what has been her career-best year to date, with a win at Gent-Wevelgem, a Tour de France Femmes stage win and overall victories at both Itzulia Women and the Tour de Suisse to go with it.

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