{"id":754113,"date":"2026-06-23T02:25:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/754113\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T02:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:25:17","slug":"2026-tour-de-suisse-elite-women-preview-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/754113\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Tour de Suisse Elite Women Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brand-new format has been rolled out for the women’s Tour de Suisse<\/a>. In a five-stage race, we’ll see a mix of riders who’ve just come from the Giro d’Italia Women, or who are already building towards the Tour de France Femmes in August. Demi Vollering won’t be taking part<\/a>, but who will? And what’s in store for them?Recent Tour de Suisse\u00a0winners\u00a02025 Marlen Reusser<\/a>
2024 Demi Vollering
2023 Marlen Reusser
2022 Lucinda Brand
2021 Elizabeth Deignan
Route, stage favorites, and times for the 2026 Tour de Suisse \u2013 Elite WomenStage 1, Wednesday, June 17, 2026: Sondrio \u2013 Sondrio (109.3 km)\"etappe-1-suisse-dames\"\/<\/p>\n

On the first day, with the start and finish in Northern Italy, the women rode a loop around Sondrio. This included three categorized climbs, one fewer than the men do. After a very interesting day of racing, Lauren Dickson and Femke de Vries battled for the stage victory, with the latter proving the strongest in the sprint. It was her first professional victory.<\/p>\n

Winner:
Femke de Vries<\/a> (Visma Lease a Bike)Stage 2, Thursday, June 18, 2026: Locarno \u2013 Locarno (105.6 km)\"etappe-2-suisse-dames\"\/On the second day, we raced in Switzerland, with the start and finish in Locarno. Femke de Vries was unable to build on her good day and was stripped of the leader’s jersey by stage winner Elisa Longo Borghini<\/a> (UAE Team ADQ), who was also able to build up a considerable lead in the finale due to Kasia Niewiadoma and Marlen Reusser taking a wrong turn.Winner:
Elisa Long- Borghini <\/a>(UAE Team ADQ)Stage 3, Friday, June 19, 2026: Bad Ragaz \u2013 Bad Ragaz (120.8 km)\"etappe-3-suisse-dames\"\/<\/p>\n

The only real sprint opportunity for the pure sprinters presented itself on Friday. In a rather uneventful stage, a sprint was indeed needed to decide the outcome, with an utterly dominant Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt relegating the competition.<\/p>\n

Winner:
Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt <\/a>(Canyon\/\/SRAM)Stage 4, Saturday, June 20, 2026: Aarburg \u2013 Aarburg (23.7 km, time trial)\"etappe-4-suisse-dames\"\/<\/p>\n

Time trial time! Back home, all eyes were on Marlen Reusser of Movistar, and rightly so, as she won the time trial and also took the yellow jersey from Elisa Longo Borghini. Zoe Backstedt finished a strong second, eleven seconds behind, following her stage victory on Friday.<\/p>\n

Winner:
Marlen Reusser<\/a> (Movistar)Stage 5, Sunday, June 21, 2026: Villars-sur-Ollon \u2013 Villars-sur-Ollon (100.4 km)\"etappe-5-suisse-dames\"\/<\/p>\n

Marlen Reusser had seized the yellow jersey with panache in the time trial on Saturday, but the queen stage would be decisive. There, the Swiss rider was phenomenal once again: she won the fifth stage after a tremendous battle. With that, she also claimed the overall victory.<\/p>\n

Winner:
Marlen Reusser<\/a> (Movistar)Tour de Suisse 2026 Elite Women overall result2026 Tour de Suisse Elite Women GC Favourites<\/p>\n

How do the riders compare to one another? Who handles the opening stages best? And who can really fly against the clock? Home rider Marlen Reusser is without doubt a major favourite \u2014 the Swiss rider from Movistar is a serious time trialist and will surely improve on her thirteenth place at the Giro d’Italia.<\/p>\n

Elisa Longo Borghini was already very strong at the Giro. The Italian from UAE Team ADQ finished fourth, but the top three from that race aren’t here in Switzerland. Maeva Squiban is her teammate. With Kasia Niewiadoma, she’ll face a fresh rival, as the Pole from Canyon\/\/SRAM went straight to a training camp after the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo<\/p>\n

\"kasia-niewiadoma\"\/<\/p>\n

Kasia Niewiadoma<\/p>\n

With Vollering absent from FDJ-SUEZ, Franziska Koch and Juliette Berthet get free rein to ride for their own results. Yara Kastelijn is without doubt the woman to watch at Fenix-Premier Tech, after her overall win in the Basque Country and second place in Burgos in May. How will she return to racing after a month off?<\/p>\n

At AG Insurance-Soudal, Kim Le Court and Ur\u0161ka \u017digart represent two serious outsiders, while at EF Education-Oatly we’re curious to see the legs of world champion Magdeleine Valli\u00e8res and C\u00e9drine Kerbaol. From a Dutch perspective, we’re watching Femke de Vries (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek), with Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime) also a dangerous customer.<\/p>\n

IDL Pro Cycling top GC picks, 2026 Tour de Suisse Elite Women\u00a0<\/p>\n

Top favorites: Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ)
Outsiders: Franziska Koch (FDJ United-SUEZ), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon\/\/SRAM), and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek)
Long shots: Maeva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ), Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-SUEZ), Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Premier Tech), Kim Le Court and Urska Zigart (AG Insurance-Soudal), Magdeleine Vallieres and C\u00e9drine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly), Femke de Vries (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime)<\/p>\n

How to watch Tour de Suisse 2026 Elite Women on TVThe Tour de Suisse is hosting a full five-day stage race for both women and men, with the women\u2019s race airing live in the morning between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.<\/a>You can watch all the action on HBO MAX<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brand-new format has been rolled out for the women’s Tour de Suisse. In a five-stage race, we’ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,205605,290026,57970,85,355742],"class_list":["post-754113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-elisa-longo-borghini","tag-marlen-reusser","tag-previews","tag-sports","tag-tour-of-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}