The reigning world time trial champion Marlen Reusser aced the individual time trial in the Tour de France Femmes to win stage four on Tuesday and take the yellow jersey from Sigrid Haugset.
Reusser, riding for Movistar, finished the 21km ride from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon in 27min 30sec, the Swiss rider taking a 14-second lead over the former champion Demi Vollering of the Netherlands in the general classification.
Vollering finished third on the day behind her compatriot Lieke Nooijen, who was four seconds slower than Reusser.
The Norwegian rider Haugset of the Uno-X Mobility team, who had taken the yellow jersey with a spectacular solo victory on Monday, was more than three minutes slower than Reusser and dropped to fourth overall, behind third-placed Cédrine Kerbaol of France.
“I’m super, super happy … it’s the first Tour de France that I really saw as my goal of the year that I really targeted,” the 34-year-old Reusser said.
As the Visma-Lease a Bike rider Nooijen threw down the gauntlet by clocking 27:34, Reusser started fast, crossing the intermediate point 20 seconds earlier than Nooijen.
It came down to the wire as Reusser pushed through the final kilometre and managed to finish four seconds faster.
Vollering, riding for FDJ United-Suez, who was already under way, made a frantic push in the final kilometre but ended up 18 seconds slower than Reusser. Haugset appeared to be struggling with exhaustion as she failed to capitalise on her two-minute cushion in the overall rankings.
The race continues on Wednesday with a 140km hilly ride from Mâcon to Belleville-en-Beaujolais.
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