"They wore themselves down trying to drop me": Noemi Rüegg used race profile to pull off 'Stannard' at Tour Down Under

The season has barely just started and Noemi Rüegg already delivered one of the most epic performances we might see throughout the rest of this season. The setting: Tour Down Under, final stage with a double ascent up the Corkscrew Road. Rüegg is among the four best riders the second time up the 2.5-kilometer climb. The plottwist? Her rivals all wear the UAE Team ADQ colours.

Anyone would expect the team in numbers' advantage to bring home the victory that day, but history teaches us time and time again that things are not always as straightforward. While examples such as Dwars door Vlaanderen 2025 or Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2015 tend to come down to poor decisionmaking and team infighting, this time was different.

UAE trio Mavi García, Paula Blasi and Dominika Wlodarczyk pulled every trick out of their playbook to shake off the Swisswoman in their wheel, but on that day, Rüegg had legs not from this world. One of the most impressive individual showcases of power you'll witness, but Rüegg still insists it was all possible thanks to an excellent teamwork of the EF Education-Oatly.

"Mags [Vallieres] is a great champion on and off the bike," Rüegg praised the world champion on the Domestique Hotseat podcast. "We are really good friends. And yeah, it's amazing to have her working for me, being so committed. I think that's truly special and something you don't always see. I was so thankful for all her work, and still now I know that I couldn't have won this tour without her."

Already the first of the two Corkscrew Road ascents saw fireworks of attacks and groups all over the road, but Rüegg did not panic and waited patiently for the race situation to calm down before the second time up. Later, she admitted that had she gone over the limit already on first ascent, it would have definitely cost her in the finale.

"I knew I needed to handle my effort pretty well because I still needed to go up there a second time. I didn’t want to go over the limit the first time, so I would still be able to be as fresh as possible for the second time. So we had to gamble a bit, and I knew I had Mags [Vallieres] with me, so we could chase it back."

"At the top of the Corkscrew I realised, okay, I'm now with the three UAE girls, and I knew that it’s gonna be a tough 5km to the finish because I knew what they were gonna do," said Rüegg. "But I also knew, I just had to be smart, I had to just close everything down immediately, don't wait too long."

Fortunately, the profile played into Rüegg's hand. "And the road was actually quite in my favour because it was a fast road, downhill, so I could make use of the slipstream a lot. So whenever they attacked, I just immediately followed, and then I could actually save a lot," said Rüegg. "I almost think that they killed themselves more than I had to kill myself to follow them. And at one point, yeah, I think they knew they're not going to get away."

In the end, Rüegg outsprinted the UAE trio in Campbelltown to take not only the stage victory but also overall title, becoming a back-to-back champion of Tour Down Under.

Rüegg will now take a short break from racing, before returning to action at Trofeo Binda in early March. Her spring block should culminate at the Vuelta España Femenina. "Hopefully I won't break my collarbone this year, like last year. And then I'll focus on the Tour de Suisse, the Tour de France that starts in Switzerland as well," said Rüegg.