Road World Championships: Marlen Reusser storms to victory in elite women’s time trial, catching Demi Vollering en route to second straight title

Opening proceedings at this year’s UCI Road World Championships, the women’s elite individual time trial, took place on Sunday morning in dry conditions. Travelling in a loop around Montréal city centre, the 39.2 kilometre course was one for the time trial purists, featuring plenty of technical difficulty but little in the way of vertical challenges, with just 220m of elevation in total.

Skye Davidson was first off the ramp for Zimbabwe, and there was an early issue for China’s Xin Tang as she went the wrong way, but was quickly back on track, as the first wave of riders set the early high bar. Mexico’s Romina Hinojosa briefly led the standings, but it was the USA’s Taylor Knibb who was the first to make a major leap forward in terms of the time, the triathlete absolutely obliterating the previous best with her finishing time of 52:43, 3:23 ahead of Hinojosa.

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After that, riders began to improve upon the best times one after another. Belgium’s Lotte Claes and Poland’s Dominika Wlodarczyk surpassed Knibb, each spending a brief period in the hotseat, before Franziska Koch of Germany shaved more than another minute off, taking the hotseat with a time of 51:09.

Backstedt had a storming ride (Image credit: Getty Images)

With all the riders out on course, attention began to turn to Great Britain’s Zoe Bäckstedt, as she set the fastest time at the first intermediate time check, 10 seconds ahead of Reusser, on her first outing at elite level.

She surpassed the time of Koch at the second intermediate check ensuring it would be down to the second half of the course, for Reusser to exert her authority.

One of the pre-race favourites for the title, Demi Vollering appeared to be having a difficult day, just 13th at the first time check and losing another half a minute before the second. Defending champion Reusser was faring better, however as she crossed the second intermediate time check she was still behind the Welsh rider, albeit by just under three seconds.

Demi Vollering had a disappointing ride (Image credit: Getty Images)

As the kilometres ticked down the tension rose. Bäckstedt stopped the clock at the final intermediate time check ahead of then leader Koch, who was hanging onto her lead despite a strong challenge from Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), who finished just under five seconds behind the German.

As Reusser crossed the final intermediate check it became clear that her pacing strategy was on point, as she surged ahead of Bäckstedt, bearing down on her former teammate Vollering.

She continued to gain in the final segment of the race, and despite a sketchy moment on one of the final corners as she delivered an imperious ride all the way to line, putting 40 seconds into Bäckstedt, who managed to overturn Koch by just 5.43 with a final burst of power.

On Bäckstedt pushing her all the way, Reusser said: “I didn’t have the gaps, and I was also saying, don’t give it to me. I was even expecting that she’d be faster because the first part is quite technical, and honestly, I think some corners I don’t do so well. So I was expecting this, and also, I mean, the only thing I then thought is that I can pass Demi [Vollering]. But for me, it was maybe on this course not the biggest reference. So till the finish line, I did not know what really happened.”

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Rank

Name

Time

1

Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)

50:24.44

2

Zoe Backstedt (Great Britain)

0:00:40

3

Franziska Koch (Germany)

0:00:46

4

Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)

0:00:50

5

Cedrine Kerbaol (France)

0:01:10

6

Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)

0:01:48

7

Antonia Niedermaier (Germany)

0:01:50

8

Demi Vollering (Netherlands)

0:01:50

9

Dominika Wlodarczyk (Poland)

0:01:59

10

Vittoria Guazzini (Italy)

0:02:05

11

Lotte Claes (Belgium)

0:02:10

12

Lieke Nooijen (Netherlands)

0:02:16

13

Taylor Knibb (United States)

0:02:19

14

Lauretta Hanson (Australia)

0:02:20

15

Juliette Berthet (France)

0:02:51

16

Anna Morris (United Kingdom)

0:02:57

17

Christina Schweinberger (Austria)

0:03:02

18

Paula Blasi (Spain)

0:03:06

19

Nadia Gontova (Canada)

0:03:14

20

Mireia Benito (Spain)

0:03:37

21

Kristen Faulkner (United States)

0:03:41

22

Anniina Ahtosalo (Finland)

0:04:16

23

Olivia Baril (Canada)

0:04:47

24

Nika Bobnar (Slovenia)

0:05:01

25

Teniel Campbell (Trinidad & Tobago)

0:05:08

26

Lucie de Marignylagesse (Mauritius)

0:05:39

27

Valeriia Kononenko (Ukraine)

0:05:41

28

Romina Hinojosa (Mexico)

0:05:42

29

Ann-Christine Allik (Estonia)

0:05:47

30

Diana Penuela (Colombia)

0:05:56

31

Bronwyn Macgregor (New Zealand)

0:06:09

32

Shimeng Zhu (China)

0:06:26

33

Sara Roel (Mexico)

0:07:29

34

Gergana Stoyanova (Bulgaria)

0:08:12

35

Xin Tang (China)

0:08:20

36

Faina Potapova (Kazakhstan)

0:08:50

37

Xaveline Nirere (Rwanda)

0:09:17

38

Diane Ingabire (Rwanda)

0:09:45

39

Magh Firotika Marenda (Indonesia)

0:11:36

40

Skye Davidson (Zimbabwe)

0:11:38

41

Mishael Alhazmi (Saudi Arabia)

0:12:56

42

Karin Abe (Japan)

0:13:05

43

Monica Kiplagat (Kenya)

0:16:15

44

Kendra Tabu (Kenya)

0:16:52

45

Alyssa Burgess (Cayman Islands)

0:18:36

46

Rongina Ngandu (Zimbabwe)

0:22:38

47

Sajedeh Siyahian (Iran)

0:28:51

DNS

Katrine Aalerud (Norway)

Row 47 – Cell 2