Preview, favourites, profile, route and predictions women's elite European Championships time-trial 2025 - Can Marlen Reusser double up after world title?

The women's European Championships time-trial will be taking place on the 1st of October, the opening day of the competition, and we take a look at the startlist which will include some big names. The time-trial will happen before the men's one, scheduled to start at 14:20CET and finish at 16:05CET.

Since the inaugural editions of the European Road Championships, the women’s time trial has consistently produced high-calibre winners from across the continent. In 2024, it was Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) who took the victory, ahead of Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) and Christina Schweinberger (Austria). With Kopecky absent, we will have a new winner.

The course will be 24 kilometers long and most of it is flat. There are no major technical features in this route that takes place near the Drôme and Rhone rivers, most of it is flat with a few rolling hills, but there is a slight uphill finish.

It is an effort for the specialists, however it is still necessary to save some power for the final 1.1 kilometers which average 5% uphill. Not a brutal effort but certainly a few seconds can be gained or lost there, and often in a time-trial that can be a winning margin.

This is a race that is not going to have a luxurious field such as the World Championships, in fact it is quite a modest one at that, with one clear favourite: Marlen Reusser. The Swiss rider was the favourite for the worlds' hilly course, and although here she won't have the same advantage, the competition is also lesser and she will be the woman to beat. The likes of Chloé Dygert (because she is from the USA), defending champion Lotte Kopecky (over lack of form) and under-23 World Champion Zoe Bäckstedt are all absent, as are Anna van der Breggen and Demi Vollering who joined Reusser on the podium last week.

Reusser's main rivals for this course are likely to be France's Juliette Labous and Cédrine Kerbaol, whilst Great Britain's Anna Henderson could also be a woman to take into very high consideration.

*** Marlen Reusser
** Anna Henderson, Juliette Labous
* Cédrine Kerbaol, Lieke Nooijen, Mischa Bredewold

Pick: Marlen Reusser