Runner-up spots in the Giro d’Italia Women and Vuelta Femenina, plus multiple stage race wins, isn’t a palmarès that should lead you to be underestimated for the Tour de France Femmes, but somehow that’s exactly the position Marlen Reusser finds herself in this week.
Reusser is firmly on all the lists of contenders – we ranked her third in ours – but discussion around the Swiss rider has sometimes been caveated with phrases like outsider or dark horse, but why?
Reusser herself has sometimes pointed to her height and stature, which admittedly is not that of the smallest climbers, as a reason people don’t see her as a GC rider, but surely by this point, her results are enough to dispel any misconceptions about her abilities.
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In Friday’s press conference, she was asked directly if she was surprised at being undervalued (specifically in the Tour fantasy game, was how her former teammate and now podcaster Lizzy Banks put it to her).
“No, I’m not surprised. It’s always like this before every race, I think every race in my life, normally I’m underestimated,” Reusser answered. “The one exception was really – it’s no joke – at Paris-Roubaix, where the team didn’t announce me, and I was never on the start list. In every pre-race, pre-whatever, that was the only one.
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“Normally people ask like ‘Marlen? But it’s climbing…’ I don’t know. It’s like this. It’s OK, I understand.”
The climbing in this year’s Tour is nothing to be sniffed at, but the headline mountain – Mont Ventoux – is steep but steady, the kind of climb which can suit a time trialist, the discipline Reusser is world champion in.
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And even so, Reusser has proven herself on all sorts of different climbs, including finishing sixth on the Colle delle Finestre in a Giro where she didn’t feel like herself, and wins on some of the steep, challenging climbs of the Spanish stage races. It’s probably time for everyone to be clear: Reusser is a climber.
Then of course there is the stage that elevates Reusser even further from top favourite to potential winner: the time trial. The stage 4 effort against the clock in Dijon has a two-kilometre climb in the middle, but Reusser’s rainbow-jersey winning effort in Kigali proved that that is not beyond her capabilities as a time trialist, and Tuesday’s stage feels like a big opportunity to take time, especially from the riders who have admitted weakness in the discipline.
Reusser is the current ITT world champion and will likely be the favourite to win stage 4 (Image credit: Getty Images)
For one reason or another, this feels like the first time that Reusser is starting as such a big favourite. She was favoured last year, but dropped out sick on stage 1, and prior to that, her double stage wins came whilst riding for SD Worx, where she was not the GC leader.
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Like the race itself, though, Reusser’s role here has evolved, and she seemed full of excitement about finally coming here as a leader, with this as her season goal.
“I mean, it’s five years ago we had again the first Tour de France, and I could witness this. It was just an amazing thing. I was riding together with Demi for SD Worx, and I also found myself always in these supportive roles in all the editions I could do,” she said.
“Last year. I was in a very bad state, and I had food [poisoning] again, and I couldn’t ride. So it’s the first year for me that I’m here and this was the target.”
Her path to get here has not been the smoothest, with her rollercoaster season interrupted by an injury in the pre-season and then a crash at the Tour of Flanders that took her out of her first stage race goal, the Vuelta Femenina, and cost her at the Giro, but she’s been firmly back on the right path for several weeks now.
“We really wanted to go for the Tour this year, and I had at least the last one to two months that were good for preparation and I feel healthy and good,” she said. “So it’s special now to finally be at the Tour in that way. I saw the Tour from many many perspectives, so yes, it’s special.”
Could she even go big straight out of the blocks and grab the yellow jersey on one of the tough opening stages before the race leaves Switzerland? It’s certainly not impossible, and would please the Swiss fans and media here, but Reusser was realistic about that idea, and the potential drawbacks too.
“That would be so cool, really it would be amazing to wear yellow,” she said. “But I think to wear yellow comes with quite some charge [cost]. Like you have to do a lot of stuff after the stage, and it’s a long race, so I don’t know what is worth more. So I think the danger is super small that this happens anyway.”
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