Marlen Reusser chose the perfect day to turn years of near misses into rainbow stripes, dominating a bruising 31.2km test in Kigali to take Switzerland’s first gold of the week. On a course that bit hard and kept biting, the three-time European champion delivered a metronomic ride that built and then broke the resistance behind. Anna van der Breggen, on a remarkable comeback year, set a long-standing benchmark and claimed silver, while Demi Vollering started brightly before fading late for bronze.
A Rwandan drum troupe rolled the curtain up, and local champion Xaverine Nirere rolled down the start ramp, the home crowds stacked deep on the pavements for the first World Championships on African soil. Nirere’s tidy opening mark of 50.07 ensured a warm stint in the hot seat before the time tumbled in stages. Soraya Paladin knocked a minute and a half from it, Hao Zhang bettered that again, and then Sigrid Haugset lopped off almost another minute as the race found its rhythm.
The cobbled Côte de Kimihurura quickly emerged as the course’s truth serum. Just 1.3km at 6.3 per cent on paper, it arrived after a route that asked riders to be on the pedals almost without pause. Twice over the Côte de Nyanza on the way out and back, 2.5km at 5.8 per cent followed by 4.1km at 3.1 per cent, plus the Côte de Péage, stacked 460 metres of climbing into a day that punished pacing errors and rewarded patience. At an altitude of around 1,450 metres and in warm air, any overreach was harshly priced.
Anna van der Breggen, the 2020 world champion, was the first of the heavy hitters to light the clock. She attacked the technical sections with trademark poise and was the first to keep the TT bars on over the Kimihurura cobbles, stopping the clock at 44.01 and putting 2.23 into Haugset. That was the first real north star for the podium fight.
Behind, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Cédrine Kerbaol both haemorrhaged time to Van der Breggen, underlining how hard the route was biting, but the real contest crystallised once Marlen Reusser and Demi Vollering hit the splits. Reusser was 15 seconds up on Van der Breggen at the first checkpoint and, after 10km, she and Vollering were separated by just 0.68 seconds. A duel, maybe a trio, was on. Chloe Dygert, a two-time world champion, was already sliding the wrong way on the timings and would never recover into the medal fight.
Reusser rode the middle portion of the test with surgeon’s calm, nursing her early advantage without panic as Van der Breggen edged a touch closer before that final act. Then the Swiss rider detonated the race. She took half of her eventual winning margin on the final cobbles, drove the line in 43.09, and parked up with a 51-second cushion over Van der Breggen that nobody could dent. Vollering, who had started on schedule for a gold chase, paid for her early aggression on the final ramps, lost time hand over fist on Kimihurura and briefly teetered under pressure for bronze before steadying to secure third.
Further down the order, Katrine Aalerud produced one of the day’s stronger late efforts to slot just behind Van der Breggen on provisional times before the favourites finished. Anna Henderson, Britain’s lone entry with podium whispers beforehand, looked laboured on the cobbles in a bigger gear and ultimately fell to eighth. Dygert was bumped to ninth.
In the end, this was a course that rewarded polarised pacing and cool heads. Reusser had both, and on the day she finally cracked her Worlds nut, nobody was close.
Photo Credit: GettyPost-race reactions
Marlen Reusser, world champion:
“I almost cannot believe it. I have tried so many times and it did not work out, and now it has. It is really special. On this course you could pace it in a polarised way. I chose to go really hard on the climbs. On the final climb I probably went a bit too hard at the start, I was full of lactic, but I think it was the right way for me. I also had an advantage being a bit heavier which helped in the descents without too much effort, so I could spend everything on the climbs. I came into the sport as a time trial specialist, I have beaten world champions in other races, but never won Worlds or the Olympics. This was a ‘Knacknuss’ for me, a hard nut to crack, and I am happy I opened it today.”
Anna van der Breggen, silver medallist:
“I prefer winning, but I think that is the same for everyone. I am really happy with the silver medal. Before the time trial I had no idea where I would end up. I paced carefully at the start and rode steady. The cobbled climb was so hard at the end, everyone went there except Marlen. I hesitated for a long time about doing the time trial, but Laurens ten Dam convinced me to try. If you do it, you have to do it 100 percent. I am glad I did.”
Demi Vollering, bronze medallist:
“It was definitely the toughest time trial of my life. I could not do the performance I wanted. Maybe it was a little bit of everything. Altitude, heat, air quality, the course. I came here in good shape with a really good preparation, but sometimes you do not pick your best legs. When I crossed the line, I thought I was 20th. In the end the medal feels like a reward for the fight to keep going when the body was saying no.”
Photo Credit: Getty2025 World Championships Time Trial Women result
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