Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) won the women’s time trial at the European Championships (Slovenia) on 7 October, in 31’30”. Demi Vollering (Netherlands) was second, 23″ back, with Juliette Berthet (France) third at 1’10”.
The race
The event was held on 7 October in Šenčur, Slovenia, on a short circuit with a single hard section, early on: the Možjanca climb, 2.1 kilometres at 10.4%. After the summit the route rolled and descended technically, then ran fast back towards the valley. It was a race to be spent in full in half an hour, very different from the long world championship time trial two weeks earlier.
Reusser, 35, arrived from that World Championships in Montreal, where she had defended her title. She started last, after Vollering, and raced alone against the clock, with no one to chase.
The first intermediate split, at the eighth kilometre, after the climb, already said a great deal: Reusser ahead of Vollering by 11″. Third was Elisa Longo Borghini, 54″ back, with Włodarczyk and Berthet just behind. The Swiss rider had made the difference on the hardest stretch, without letting herself be pulled along by her most-anticipated rival.
In the second half she stretched her lead again. At the sixteenth kilometre the advantage over Vollering had grown to 20″, and at the finish it became 23″. Vollering, who had won the road race four days earlier, held the pace but never truly put the contest in doubt.
Behind, the battle was for bronze. Berthet overtook Longo Borghini in the closing part, when the Italian had been third at the first intermediate split, and finished with a few seconds’ margin. Franziska Koch, named among the favourites, stayed outside the top ten.
For Reusser it is a fifth European time trial title, after those of 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025. She thus surpasses the four wins of Ellen van Dijk. No one else, man or woman, had won the World and European time trial titles in the same year for two seasons: she managed it in 2025 and in 2026.
After the race she told TNT Sports she was very happy with the win. She added that for 2027 she wants to change and improve many things, above all in team processes, and that her goal is a title in a grand tour, after two second places at the Vuelta Femenina.
The best of the Italians is Elisa Longo Borghini, 4th at 1’17”. All 24 of the 24 riders who started finished.
The top ten
| # | Rider | Country | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marlen Reusser | Switzerland | 31’30” |
| 2 | Demi Vollering | Netherlands | +23″ |
| 3 | Juliette Berthet | France | +1’10” |
| 4 | Elisa Longo Borghini | Italy | +1’17” |
| 5 | Dominika Wlodarczyk | Poland | +1’31” |
| 6 | Cedrine Kerbaol | France | +2’00” |
| 7 | Sandrine Tas | Belgium | +2’02” |
| 8 | Lauren Dickson | Great Britain | +2’23” |
| 9 | Lotte Claes | Belgium | +2’37” |
| 10 | Lieke Nooijen | Netherlands | +2’40” |
News written with the help of Mnemosyne.
Sources
- Results and times: UCI, official results.
- Photo: Cs-wolves, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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