Marlen Reusser baffled by dramatic Tour de France Femmes collapse: ‘Maybe it’s more complex than we think’

After six days, everything was still going perfectly for Marlen Reusser at the Tour de France Femmes. The Swiss Movistar rider was one of the leading contenders for overall victory, but everything unravelled over the final three stages. Poor legs and a crash sent her tumbling out of the top ten altogether. Now, Reusser has opened up about that miserable experience and the mystery surrounding her sudden loss of form.

Reusser first lost the yellow jersey on Mont Ventoux. At that point, she was still only 39 seconds away from the race lead, but Demi Vollering put more time into her during the penultimate stage. Any remaining hopes of yellow quickly disappeared in the final stage. Reusser was dropped early on the Col d'Èze and lost sight of the podium before she then crashed as well. The final outcome was 14th overall, almost 26 minutes behind Vollering.

How could things go so badly? Reusser does not know either. “For some reason — and that is the big mystery now — I just couldn’t pedal as well over the last two days,” she told RadSport. “Somehow, I couldn’t get the power onto the pedals properly anymore. But where that came from, why it happened, that’s difficult to say. The coaches and the medical team don’t have an answer either, and that’s the mystery we now have to get to the bottom of.” Conventional explanations such as dehydration or poor nutrition could apparently be ruled out.

Reusser had come to the Tour intending to fight for the general classification, making the way things unravelled all the more painful. The 34-year-old Swiss rider is therefore considering every possibility. “Maybe it’s more complex than we think. We absolutely have to look for the reason, but it’s also not that easy to simulate a Tour de France and then see why certain things happen.”

What is certain is that things simply did not work as they normally would during the final weekend. “The wattages I was riding at normally definitely aren’t the point where I reach my limit. But then again, what is normal? It was day eight and day nine of the Tour de France. Maybe that’s my weakness? I don’t know.”

Illness, at least, did not appear to be the problem. “Of course I didn’t wake up in the morning saying: ‘Wow, I’ve never felt this good!’ Obviously I wasn’t completely recovered anymore, but I think it was still within normal limits. It wasn’t a fantastic night, but I think that’s to be expected at the end of the Tour. Overall, I’m doing fine — c’est la vie!” Reusser also said that her recovery data had remained normal and that she had not experienced any unusual weakness away from the bike.

The crash on the final stage only added to an already disastrous day. “But I had already been dropped before that. So the crash isn’t the reason I lost the Tour podium. Of course I have some grazes and a bit of bruising on my chest. But look: the crash is really peanuts compared with the disappointment of losing the Tour podium.” Reusser had already lost contact on the second ascent of the Col d'Èze before crashing while trying to chase back on the descent.

“The podium was really what mattered to me,” Reusser continued. “By then, I knew that was gone, and it didn’t even occur to me that I might still be able to finish in the top ten. This is actually the first time I’ve thought about it. At that moment, I wasn’t thinking about it at all and I didn’t care either. I’m actually surprised that I still finished 14th!”

And so she is trying to take something positive from the race. “Overall, the Tour de France was really good for me. Even if you just look at where I had come from beforehand, it was really good: I was absolutely in contention for the victory. Then, when you look at where the others came from, where I came from and how the last few months have gone, I can really be very proud. But what always stays at the centre of your mind is what happened last — and that was this disappointment.” Earlier in the Tour, Reusser had won the stage-four individual time trial in Dijon and taken the yellow jersey, underlining just how close she had been to turning her comeback into an overall Tour challenge.