Switzerland has announced who it will be taking to Australia to take part in this year’s World Championships. The team for the road race is a mixture of big names from the road, time trial specialists and mountain biker riders. There are no spots for the likes of Jolanda Neff, who after a mountain bike punctuated with brief forays on the road, will be looking forward to the early winter cyclocross races in America.
It’s a similar story with Sina Frei who impressed enough on the road to race as a guest rider for SD Worx at the Tour of Scandinavia. Other highly ranked Swiss riders to not make the selection are Caroline Baur and Petra Stiasny of Roland Cogeas and Lara Krähemann of Born to Win G20 Ambedo.
It feels like the best shot will come from Marlen Reusser in the time trial. She became the European Champion in the discipline by just beating Ellen van Dijk to the title. She will hope that she can beat her Dutch rival in Australia as well and don the rainbow bands in the time trial. Between them, it feels like there is an outside bet that Reusser or Chabbey could win the road race through an attack. Against such a stacked roster and the major Dutch team line-up, that will be tough to pull off. Neither are particularly strong sprinters so would have to come to the line as part of a very reduced group or solo to earn the title.
Not that that plan is particularly past either rider. Reusser took a great stage win at the Tour de France Femmes on the gravel after escaping the lead group and having a big enough engine to not be caught. She later left that race with a concussion but after winning the European Championships, she appears to now be fully fit and ready to race. Chabbey doesn’t have a race win this season but has made a habit out of winning QOM jerseys. She took the QoM jersey home with her at both the Women’s Tour and Itzulia Women this season and was 2nd in her hunt to take it home from the Giro Donne too. It should be safe to assume that Chabbey will attack, probably quite early on too.
Switzerland 2022 World Championships team
Time Trial
Sunday 18th September 2022
Marlen Reusser
Elena Hartmann
Road Race
Saturday 24th September 2022
Marlen Reusser (SD Worx)
Elise Chabbey (Canyon SRAM)
Noemi Ruegg (Jumbo-Visma)
Elena Hartmann
Nicole Koller
