The Swiss rider capitalised on UAE Team ADQ’s mistakes to win the final stage and defend her overall title.
At the Foxfield Oval in Campbelltown, as the final stage of the Santos Tour Down Under comes to a close, the EF Education-Oatly and UAE Team ADQ camps are separated by just 30 metres. Close they may be, but the feeling among the two teams couldn’t be more different.
At EF Education-Oatly, sports director Daniel Foder and his retinue arrive in their team car, jump out, and embrace the team staffers that are already there. Sports directors from rival teams come over to congratulate Foder.
His star rider, Noemi Rüegg had just won the final stage of the Tour Down Under despite being outnumbered three to one by UAE Team ADQ riders in the four-up sprint. And she hasn’t just won the stage: she’s won the race overall, the first rider to win two editions back-to-back since Amanda Spratt’s three-peat between 2017 and 2019.
Rüegg arrives a short time later, jubilant, relieved, and grateful as she embraces her fellow riders and team staff, before being whisked away for podium duties.
At the UAE van, the mood is far less positive. Dominika Wlodarczyk, one of the team’s three riders in the leading quartet, is first to arrive. She’s in tears as she sits down, placing her head in her hands. She swats away the hand of her sports director Michel Cornelisse when he tries to comfort her. The Polish all-rounder is furious, distraught, and spends much of the next 10 minutes remonstrating with Cornelisse, arguing about how the team tackled the finale.
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