Longo Borghini capitalizes on rival's mistakes at Tour de Suisse and takes overall lead

Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) won the second stage of the women’s Tour of Switzerland in Locarno. Femke de Vries (Visma | Lease a Bike) had a poor day and lost the lead after just one day. Brit Lauren Dickson did enough to hold onto second in the GC behind new leader Longo Borghini.

On day two in Switzerland, the riders raced in and around Locarno, where the crucial section came with two climbs in the final 20 kilometres. In the opening phase there was not much hard racing, perhaps for that reason. With 66 kilometres to go, the first serious breakaway attempt only went clear, from Margot Pachtenbeke (Lidl-Trek) and Carlotta Cipressi of Human Powered Health.

De Vries also had a tense moment in that phase, when she was involved in a crash with 62 kilometres to go. Fortunately, she was able to continue without too much trouble and quickly rejoin the peloton, which was heading towards the Fanghi climb (3.5 kilometres at 7 per cent).

EF Education-EasyPost immediately set a hard pace, after which Kasia Niewiadoma was the first to attack. De Vries was on her wheel out of the saddle and at first did not budge on the climb. On the descent there was a short rise, where she suddenly had to let go of Niewiadoma and Reusser.

De Vries then dropped back further on the Mezzano climb (1.4 km at 8.9%) and seemed to be giving her Canadian team-mate Van Dam a free hand to ride for herself and thus give up her leader’s jersey. Up front, Longo Borghini proved to be the strongest: she rode away uphill by fifteen seconds from Marlen Reusser, Niewiadoma and Van Dam, and rode solo to Locarno.

She was also heavily helped, in terms of the overall standings, by the fact that Reusser and Niewiadoma rode the wrong way and only realised their mistake after several hundred metres. Van Dam saw it and came home second at half a minute. Reusser and Niewiadoma lost 45 seconds, and De Vries even more.