Red Jersey for Rüegg as Swiss Takes Stage 1 of Vuelta Femenina

Noemi Rüegg scooped the opening stage and race lead in the Vuelta Femenina on Sunday, blitzing an uphill sprint to take the biggest win of her career thus far.

The Swiss rider was set up perfectly by her EF Education-Oatly team and she was clearly quickest when she launched inside 200m to go, outpacing Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez) and holding off Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime).

“It is absolutely insane. I honestly can’t really believe it,” the 25 year old said. “It is just a dream to win a grand tour stage. The team believed in me so much and it was a big goal to go for the win.

“The girls believed in it more than I did and it is insane to finish it off like this. I don’t know what to say.”

Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) was caught behind when several riders fell on a tight bend with 8.4km to go. She faced a long chase back, but still had enough in the tank to take seventh.

GC contenders Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon SRAM-Zondacrypto) and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma Lease a Bike) were prominent, taking fourth and ninth, and showing they are ready for the hardest edition of the Vuelta thus far.

Koch took a six second bonus sprint during the stage and ended up level on time with Rüegg, but the latter takes the overall race lead.

“I think it gives a lot of confidence to everyone,” she said of the win and also of having the leader’s jersey.

“I really want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all my teammates. They really believed in me and encouraged me. We had the race under control from the beginning. We owned the race, we were always together, so this gives me a lot of confidence.

“I think that is what we take in the next few days as well, that we can trust each other. It is so nice that we got such a reward today with the victory.”

Late crash brings drama

Stage 1 of the race brought the riders 113.9km from Marín to Salvaterro de Miño and had 1827 vertical meters of climbing.

Despite that the stage was curiously controlled, with several attacks being fired off but nothing really sticking.

Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal) each won a category three climb ahead of the other, leaving them locked on points, with the final awarding of the mountains jersey going to whoever was higher placed at the finish. That was ultimately Squiban, while other riders were more focused on the stage win and the general classification.

Koch won the intermediate sprint at Ponteareas (91.5km), taking a six second time bonus, and appeared to be on the way to possible race leadership when she got clear with teammates Juliette Berthet (FDJ) and Eva Van Agt (FDJ) plus Pauline Ferrand Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Alessia Vigilia (Uno-X) inside the final 8.4km.

The split was created after a crash brought down a handful of riders on a tight decent, with this incident splitting the bunch into several parts.

“We didn’t plan anything originally, but then we saw that there were splits and we were in the front,” Koch later explained. “So then you have to ride.”

However the other teams rode hard to bring them back, with the fragmented peloton also coming back together.

Various teams tried to take control, with Rüegg’s EF Education-Oatly positioning her very well heading to the uphill drag to the line.

“I knew this finish was perfect for me. If I could draw my dream stage it would end exactly like this,” sbe said.

“I knew I could trust on a long sprint so from the last corner I wanted to just go full gas and all in. The team put me in a great position and then I just went all out from the last corner.

“I had a gap pretty immediately and I was like, ‘okay, just keep going.’ I looked back and I saw I could make it to the finish. It was a dream.”