World champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) won the stage 4 individual time trial at the Tour de Suisse Women, covering the 23.7km course around Aarburg in 29:36, beating Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) by 11 seconds.
Loes Adegeest (Lidl-Trek) took third place on the stage, 54 seconds down, as the two world champions dominated the flat TT
Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) finished in fifth place, 1:05 slower than Reusser, and had to relinquish the yellow jersey to the ITT world champion who goes into the final stage with a 10-second lead over the Italian.
"It was very hard, really very, very hard. I went really hard from the start and I was suffering a lot. You go fast, but you don’t really know if the others go faster. And this course feels fast anyway, even if you don’t go fast. I didn’t know anything until I arrived at the finish line," said Reusser about her effort.
With one day to go, Reusser is now in the yellow jersey, but she maintained that anything could happen on Sunday’s tough mountain stage.
"It’s a day that is exceptionally hard, it really is a special course. I think one weak moment can change the whole GC, not only getting me out of the yellow, but for everybody. Tomorrow is going to be super tough."
How it unfolded
The 23.7km test against the clock started and finished in Aarburg. The first and last 4km were out-and-back on the same road, with the rest on an anit-clockwise loop that included a couple of short climbs.
Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ) was one of the first starters and already set a real benchmark with 30:45. When her compatriot Lauretta Hanson (Lidl-Trek) finished three seconds slower, the Australian could get comfortable in the hot seat as nobody else came close to threatening her time for the next half-hour.
However, Bäckstedt then beat Chapman's intermediate time by 25 seconds and kept that pace to the finish. Crossing the line in 29:47, she took almost a minute off Chapman's time, and a second consecutive stage win for stage 3 winner Bäckstedt was a very real possibility as only Marlen Reusser seemed capable of beating such a strong time.
Adegeest finished 15 seconds faster than Chapman, a time that would be enough for third place in the end. Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) was also on a very good ride but missed the turn onto the finishing straight. She lost several seconds but still managed to stop the clock after 30:47, finishing seventh in the end. Jasmin Liechti (Switzerland), Femke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) also stayed below 31 minutes.
Marlen Reusser was five seconds faster than Bäckstedt at the intermediate time, putting the stage victory up in the air, and in front of a home crowd, the world ITT champion finished 11 seconds faster than Bäckstedt to win the stage.
Longo Borghini had lost 32 seconds to Reusser on the first 10.3km to the intermediate timing point, and when she finished in 30:41 minutes, it was clear that Reusser would take the yellow jersey in addition to the stage victory.
The race concludes with stage 5 on Sunday, which will be the toughest stage yet as the peloton take on mountainous loops and two ascents of the Col de la Croix.
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