The Alé BTC Ljubljana team has achieved a major market breakthrough for the 2021 season: 29-year-old runner-up Time Trial World Champion Marlen Reusser will arrive from Switzerland.
She is a top-level rider who has carved out a leading role for herself on the international scene over the past two years, especially in time trial races.
In the short 2020 season she won the silver medal at the ITT World Championships in Imola, the bronze medal at the ITT European Championships and the silver medal with Switzerland in the Team Relay in Plouay, and is also ITT national champion. In 2019 she won the Swiss national title in both road and time trial and also won the gold medal in the individual time trial at the European Games in Minsk.
After her previous experiences with WCC Team and Èquipe Paule Ka, Marlen Reusser takes an important step in her career and chooses to do this with Alé BTC Ljubljana for several reasons: “The first is that I have always admired this team, I always found there was a nice atmosphere, the right way to live this sport and I love the Italian attitude to life and sport and then I would also like to learn Italian. The other thing I really liked was that the team is led by Alessia Piccolo, a strong woman who has given an important impulse to the whole world of women’s cycling and her team and I find myself aligned with their philosophy. I like the management, we have talked a lot and I find myself with their ideas and I am happy to be able to pursue new goals together with them”.
As for the expectations for next season Marlen Reusser explained: “My focus will certainly be on the most important time trial events such as the European Championships, World Championships and Olympics Games where I think I can aspire to a medal. I also want to improve my skills in road races and try to get some good results. For this I will be able to learn a lot from the most experienced riders of the new team like Marta Bastianelli”.
Team manager Fortunato Lacquaniti commented: “Marlen’s recruitment is a very important reinforcement for our team. We are talking about a top rider who is one of the best in the world in the time trial specialty. She proved it again at the last ITT World Championships, coming within 15 seconds of Van der Breggen. We had already discovered her last year, even before she won the European Games in Minsk, we had talked to each other and there was an understanding that is happening now and we are happy to be able to work together and help her in this important phase of her career”.
(ph. Vélofocus, Sean Robinson)