Returning to racing at the Tour de Suisse Women after an injury break, Élise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) went all-in from the start in the hunt for mountain points and ended up in a solo breakaway for most of the 56-kilometre stage before being reeled in with 3km to go in Weinfelden.
“You have to try. It’s a shame that it didn’t work out, but in any case, I tried. It was my goal to make myself suffer today,” she said after the stage.
On the final stage of the Vuelta Femenina in early May, Chabbey had fractured the scaphoid in one of her hands. Although she finished the stage, the injury required surgery and put her out of action for over a month.
Chabbey attacked on the Burgstrasse climb but found herself on a solo as nobody else had followed her move.
She made the most of it and won all three mountain sprints to take an early lead in the QOM classification, where she has nine points, six more than second-placed Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx).
“I wanted to attack. I would have liked someone to come with me and create a bigger breakaway, but in the end, I was alone. It’s nice to go on the podium with the QOM jersey,” said Chabbey.
Mountain jerseys have become something of a collectible for Chabbey, who won the QOM classifications at the 2021 and 2022 Women’s Tours as well as the 2022 Itzulia Women and finished runner-up in the 2022 Giro Donne mountain classification.
With her points haul from stage 1, Chabbey will start the stage 2 ITT in the red mountain jersey, but her main goal for the rest of the race is something else.
“My legs were good. The question is if they will still be good tomorrow … The time trial isn’t my specialty, but I want to win a stage and will go for that every day,” Chabbey promised to keep attacking.
