Marlen Reusser delivers for home fans at Tour de Suisse Women time trial, Bäckstedt strong second

Marlen Reusser (Movistar) won the individual time trial at the Tour de Suisse on Saturday. Riding for the home crowd, she put in an excellent ride against the clock, one that also earned her the overall race lead at the expense of Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ).

The women's Tour de Suisse has produced a few surprises so far, but also some nasty crashes. On one hand, there were fine wins from the likes of Femke de Vries (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), but we also saw crashes involving Urška Žigart (AG Insurance-Soudal) and FDJ-SUEZ rider Lauren Dickson.

The latter did make it to the finish on Friday, but it turned out that was the end of her race, with a broken collarbone. As a result, the rider sitting second overall was unable to start the individual time trial. "I'll be cheering my teammates on from the sofa," Dickson confirmed on her Instagram.

Dickson, incidentally, wasn't the only rider to disappear from the race. Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek), who had lacked the good feeling for a few days already, and the also-crashed Katharina Sadnik of Visma | Lease a Bike also didn't take the start in the time trial.

Becky Storrie (Picnic-PostNL) had the honour of setting off first at 10:39am in this time trial, but the first benchmark time came from UAE's Brodie Chapman. She covered the 23 kilometres in Aarburg in 30:45, but her solid intermediate splits were quickly bettered by Friday's stage winner: Zoe Bäckstedt. She was also blisteringly fast at the finish, clocking 29:47.

Meanwhile, a few interesting Dutch riders also came to the start with an eye on Wednesday's national championships. Riejanne Markus didn't produce a top time trial, but her Lidl-Trek teammate Loes Adegeest did. They crossed the line virtually ninth and second respectively. Adegeest finished third, marking her out as an outsider — or even a contender — for Wednesday.

Top favourite Reusser still had to start, which she did to loud cheers from her compatriots. At the first time check, she was five seconds quicker than Bäckstedt, and the chase for race leader Longo Borghini — who had started the time trial with a 55-second advantage — was on. By the first time split, the gap was already down to 31 seconds.

Reusser was eleven seconds quicker than Bäckstedt at the finish, but it was Longo Borghini's final time that really mattered. She was 1:04 slower, meaning the Swiss rider took over the race lead on home soil. There's still a tough mountain stage to come on Sunday, however, heading to Villars-sur-Ollon.