Elisa Longo-Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) won stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse Women solo on Thursday and took the yellow jersey, capping a ride she said carried extra meaning because it came within 25km of her home near Verbania with family and friends at the finish.
"It's always nice to win somewhere close to home," Longo-Borghini said in her post-stage interview on Cycling Pro Net's YouTube. "Being in yellow is a big pride for myself but also for the team in general."
This result followed a very emotional victory on the final stage of the Giro d'Italia Women and finished fourth overall, just off the podium. She described that result as meaning "much more than a win" and called it "a comeback" after months where she struggled with long-term illness. The result in Switzerland suggests that her upward trajectory is continuing for her.
Longo-Borghini said she and her team were expecting Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) to be the rider to beat today after the Polish champion looked very strong on the final climb of the opening stage and the Italian was waiting for her to attack. "At a certain point I didn't understand why she was not turning with me uphill," Longo-Borghini said. "And then I was like, okay, I just give it a try. And I understood why I found myself solo."
She dropped Niewiadoma-Phinney but she was very keen to credit her rival's swashbuckling and aggressive style before the final climb. "Chapeau, because she really did the first climb hard," she said. "She was really strong."
Niewiadoma-Phinney confirmed after the stage that the heat had taken a toll. "Honestly, today I felt like I was suffering with the heat," she said in her post-stage interview. "I just could not cool myself down. I feel like I just blew up." Her losses grew further after she and Marlen Reusser took a wrong turn in the finale, realising too late to avoid losing more time.
Longo-Borghini was concerned after struggling on the final climbs of stage 1 but she found that, as the day went on, she started to feel good and even found joy in the race again. "Sometimes when you do those big efforts, the next day you're suffering a little bit in the beginning of the stage, but then you unlock your legs somehow," she said. "Today this happened, and it was fun going downhill, actually."
She is keeping herself and the UAE Team ADQ team grounded, though with two very difficult stages ahead in stages 4 and 5. "I like to have my feet on the ground," she said. "It's five days of racing and there is a time trial. We all know that Marlen Reusser is super strong in a time trial, and there is the last stage, which is super hard."
Stage 3 is the flattest day of the race this year with a chance for the small group of sprinters who have made the trip to the race this year to contest the victory. After that it is a technical individual time trial in Aarburg and a decisive mountain stage around Villars-sur-Ollon to close the race on Sunday. Reusser is, of course, the main danger with the world time trial champion hoping to retain her title won on home roads last year. However, the final stage may give a chance for the best climbers to regain the time lost in the test against the clock.
"Tomorrow we will try to enjoy the yellow and to defend it," Longo-Borghini said. "We see day by day, but we stay humble and we keep working. It's not in the ethic of our team to fly."
Cover image credit: Thomas Maheux/SWpix.com
