{"id":388882,"date":"2026-01-25T01:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/388882\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T01:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:18:12","slug":"noemi-ruegg-used-race-profile-to-pull-off-stannard-at-tour-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/388882\/","title":{"rendered":"Noemi R\u00fcegg used race profile to pull off ‘Stannard’ at Tour Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n“Mags [Vallieres] is a great champion on and off the bike,” R\u00fcegg praised the world champion on the Domestique Hotseat podcast<\/a>. “We are really good friends. And yeah, it’s amazing to have her working for me, being so committed. I think that’s truly special and something you don’t always see. I was so thankful for all her work, and still now I know that I couldn’t have won this tour without her.”A gamble that paid off<\/p>\n

Already the first of the two Corkscrew Road ascents saw fireworks of attacks and groups all over the road, but R\u00fcegg did not panic and waited patiently for the race situation to calm down before the second time up. Later, she admitted that had she gone over the limit already on first ascent, it would have definitely cost her in the finale.<\/p>\n

“I knew I needed to handle my effort pretty well because I still needed to go up there a second time. I didn\u2019t want to go over the limit the first time, so I would still be able to be as fresh as possible for the second time. So we had to gamble a bit, and I knew I had Mags [Vallieres] with me, so we could chase it back.”<\/p>\n

“At the top of the Corkscrew I realised, okay, I’m now with the three UAE girls, and I knew that it\u2019s gonna be a tough 5km to the finish because I knew what they were gonna do,” said R\u00fcegg. “But I also knew, I just had to be smart, I had to just close everything down immediately, don’t wait too long.”<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the profile played into R\u00fcegg’s hand. “And the road was actually quite in my favour because it was a fast road, downhill, so I could make use of the slipstream a lot. So whenever they attacked, I just immediately followed, and then I could actually save a lot,” said R\u00fcegg. “I almost think that they killed themselves more than I had to kill myself to follow them. And at one point, yeah, I think they knew they’re not going to get away.”<\/p>\n

In the end, R\u00fcegg outsprinted the UAE trio in Campbelltown to take not only the stage victory but also overall title, becoming a back-to-back champion of Tour Down Under<\/a>.<\/p>\n

R\u00fcegg will now take a short break from racing, before returning to action at Trofeo Binda in early March. Her spring block should culminate at the Vuelta Espa\u00f1a Femenina. “Hopefully I won’t break my collarbone this year, like last year. And then I’ll focus on the Tour de Suisse, the Tour de France that starts in Switzerland as well,” said R\u00fcegg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Mags [Vallieres] is a great champion on and off the bike,” R\u00fcegg praised the world champion on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,122733,146748,101,117850,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-388882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-ef-education-oatly","10":"tag-noemi-ruegg","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tour-down-under","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}