Tour de Suisse Women: Elisa Longo Borghini wins hilly stage 2 and takes GC lead with attack on final climb in Locarno

Margot Vanpachtenbeke and Carlotta Cipressi in the break of the day (Image credit: Getty Images)

Starting and finishing in Locarno, stage 2 was mainly an out-and-back course through the canton of Ticino, turning around just north of Malvaglio in the Blenio valley to head back south.

The final 20km then featured two climbs: The 3.6km, 7% ascent to Fanghi crested with 13.6km to go, and after a short plateau and a technical descent, the 1.2km, 8.9% climb on the Via Consiglio Mezzano immediately followed.

It took an hour for the breakaway to be established; eventually, Margot Vanpachtenbeke (Lidl-Trek) and Carlotta Cipressi (Human Powered Health) got away and quickly built an advantage of just over two minutes.

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40km from the finish, this had been brought back down to 1:15 minutes when Josie Talbot (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) attacked from the peloton, trying to bridge to the front on her own. But as the gap went back out to 2:10 minutes, the Australian’s chase was unsuccessful, and she was back in the bunch with 26km to go.

With the two climbs coming up, the peloton increased the pace and quickly reduced the gap to the break, reeling in Vanpachtenbeke and Cipressi 18.8km from the line.

Reusser, Van Dam, Longo Borghini, Niewiadoma-Phinney, De Vries, and Häberlin on the move up one of the late climbs (Image credit: Getty Images)

The peloton was already reduced to about 20 riders when Niewiadoma-Phinney made her move halfway up the Fanghi climb. Stage 1 winner and yellow jersey Femke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike), Longo Borghini, Häberlin, and Reusser were able to follow the attack, and Van Dam managed to bridge to the group just as Häberlin lost contact.

The Swiss champion returned on the plateau at the top of the climb and immediately tried to attack. Longo Borghini and Reusser shut down her move, but it had been enough to drop De Vries.

Van Dam narrowly avoided a crash at the start of the descent but had to let a gap open in the group, and this saw Niewiadoma-Phinney and Longo Borghini pull ahead on the descent.

On the final climb, Reusser worked hard to bring the chase group with Van Dam and Häberlin back to the front and had almost closed the gap when Longo Borghini attacked, leaving the Polish champion behind to go solo with 9km left.

10 seconds ahead at the top, Longo Borghini increased her advantage on the descent. Her victory was already all but secure when Reusser and Niewiadoma-Phinney missed a left turn in the final, going off-course for a short period before realising their mistake and turning back.

Van Dam, suddenly alone in second position, went on without them to finish second while Häberlin joined Reusser and Niewiadoma-Phinney and outsprinted them for third place.