‘I don’t expect the best legs’ – Why the UAE Tour climb of Jebel Hafeet comes too soon for Marlen Reusser

After being pipped into second place at last week’s Trofeo Marratxi-Felanitx hilltop finish in Mallorca, Marlen Reusser has arrived at the UAE Tour Women with ambition but little in the way of hope for overall victory.

This year’s race will serve up its usual fare of three flat stages, but if crosswinds don’t appear, the final stage and its climb of Jebel Hafeet will be the decisive day. Finishing 1025m above sea level, the climb is a tough one, averaging a 6.6% gradient over 10.8km. The middle eight kilometres are 8% with ramps of 11%, something which would normally provide Reusser a chance of victory. Not this year, according to Movistar’s Swiss woman.

Reusser was introduced at the pre-race press conference as a time trialist, a entirely accurate moniker. After a hatful of close calls, last year she finally won the time trial rainbow jersey, finishing a full 51 seconds ahead of Anna van der Breggen on the uphill finishing in Kigali, Rwanda. Less than two weeks later, she won her fourth European TT title, this time by 49 seconds. She’s won time trial stages of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Giro d’Italia Women, Vuelta Burgos and more, it’s very fair to call her a time trialist, but she’s so much more as well.

“I don’t know why it’s this way always. I think I showed the I’m a good climber. One of the best climbers in the world, so it’s weird that I’m always reduced to this time trialing,” she said.

You only need to look back to last year’s Tour de Suisse to see what she means. Not only did she out-sprint former team mate Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) to win the opening stage of the Tour de Suisse, she rode the Dutch woman off her wheel on the final climb to take victory on the closing day too.

“The engine I have always allowed me to do that. If you look back like when I came into the sport, I think ’21 was the first year I could really be in the bigger races. For example, I was second in the Vuelta, I climbed very fast, I helped my teammates, and still was very good myself. And then later I was domestique and give a lot to my teammates.”

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That race, where she won the opening stage before finishing a close second to Annemiek van Vleuten in the short but steep mountain time trial, was also an education for the 34-year-old.

“I had a little bit in a conflict with my ego,” she said, before elaborating. “Because my team then said, you can still climb full gas in the end, if you like, if you work as a domestique. I felt like I wanted people see what I can do if I go for myself, because it changes a lot in your legs if you’re pulling the whole day, and then I would still be, I don’t know, fifth. This was an ego thing.”

Charming, thoughtful and funny to speak with, competitiveness oozes out of Reusser, though she arrived in the professional peloton relatively late in life, starting at Equipe Paul Ka in 2020 aged 28. After a year with Alé-BTC Ljubljana she then signed with SD Worx, leaving at the end of 2023.

“I think I was always competitive, you feel that you have it in you, so why shouldn’t you? I felt always more and more that I have a lot in myself. And then you’re like asking, like in SD Worx, why should I keep giving to my teammates when maybe I can be better than them? It doesn’t make sense. If you think I can beat them, why should you keep going working for them? So that was what I had.”