Tour de Suisse Women: Marlen Reusser fends off dramatic chase to win stage 5 on Col de la Croix and secure third home GC victory

Marlen Reusser (Movistar) won the Tour de Suisse Women, taking her second consecutive overall victory and the third of her career by soloing to victory on stage 5.

A day after her ITT victory, Reusser also won the brutal mountain around Villars-sur-Ollon, dropping Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) in the final kilometre to win alone.

Reusser and Niewiadoma-Phinney congratulated eachother and Kim Le Court at the finish (Image credit: Getty Images)How it unfolded

Megan Arens (Picnic PostNL) went clear to win the first mountain sprint but was caught again on the descent where a strong front group of eleven riders including all the GC contenders got away.

Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) went solo from that group and built an advantage of up to three minutes on the peloton, with a chase group consisting of Nina Buijsman (Human Powered Health), Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime), Jasmin Liechti (Switzerland), Alice Towers (EF Education-Oatly), Léa Curinier (FDJ United-Suez), and Célia Le Mouël (Ma Petite Entreprise) in between.

Beginning the monster climb from the valley floor to the Col de la Croix, Koch was 1:24 minutes ahead of the six chasers, with the peloton following at 2:34 minutes.

Koch in the lead (Image credit: Getty Images)

The chase group fell apart on the first part of the climb, and the peloton was quickly reduced in size as the Movistar duo of Sara Martín and Liane Lippert set a hard pace. Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) then took over from them, working in support of her leader Elisa Longo Borghini and reeling what remained of the chase group with 52km to go.

There were only 14 riders left in the group of favourites now, some of which had been part of the earlier chase group, and Koch was less than a minute ahead. Longo Borghini, hoping to overcome her ten-second deficit in GC and win the race overall, took over from Squiban, reducing the group further as only Niewiadoma-Phinney, Reusser, De Vries, Arens, Steffi Häberlin (SD Worx-Protime), Kerbaol, Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez), Liechti, Buijsman, and Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) could follow the pace.

Another acceleration by the Italian champion reduced the group even further to Longo Borghini, Reusser, Arens, De Vries, Kerbaol, and Häberlin, and when they could see Koch up ahead, De Vries launched her attack.

Arens, Niewiadoma-Phinney, and Reusser followed the move, and Reusser took charge, setting the pace and quickly passing Koch while Kerbaol went on a solo chase from behind. With one lap to go, the front group of four was four seconds ahead of Kerbaol while a group of Longo Borghini, Häberlin, Berthet, Buijsman, and Le Court-Pienaar was 14 seconds behind.

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Reusser in the lead group (Image credit: Getty Images)

Kerbaol soon made it to the front. On the last 3km of the climb, De Vries’ attack briefly saw Kerbaol and Arens dropped, but they made their way back again. Arens then attacked herself in a bid for the mountain jersey but was caught again before the top and dropped on the last bit of the climb. Although Reusser beat her to first place at the mountain sprint, De Vries had collected enough points throughout the race to win the green mountain jersey.

The group with Longo Borghini was 1:28 minutes behind at the QOM, making Reusser’s GC victory all but certain. Arens never made it back and was instead picked up by the chasers, leaving four riders at the front of the race who started the 11km finishing climb 1:15 minutes ahead of Berthet, Longo Borghini, Le Court-Pienaar, Sarah Van Dam (Visma-Lease a Bike), Liechti, Häberlin, and Buijsman.

Le Court-Pienaar soon attacked from this chase group, with only Häberlin chasing after her. Longo Borghini dropped back through the group, having to let gaps open in front of her, and eventually imploded completely, losing more than nine minutes to Le Court-Pienaar.

Up ahead, Niewiadoma-Phinney’s attack split the front group, and the Polish champion did most of the work on the way to the finish, trying to both leapfrog Kerbaol in GC and keep Le Court-Pienaar from reaching the group from behind and contest the stage in a sprint.

The pair rode much of the final climb just the two of them (Image credit: Getty Images)

Le Court-Pienaar never did make it to the front, but Kerbaol came back on the final kilometre where Reusser then left the two others behind to win the stage.

In addition to the yellow jersey, her two stage victories also won Reusser the blue points jersey while GC runner-up Kerbaol won the white U25 jersey. AG Insurance-Soudal won the team classification.

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