Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) survived an onslaught of attacks in the final 30 kilometres to win the 2025 Women's Tour Down Under in Stirling. The Swiss champion fought til the end and finished third on the stage to secure her first WorldTour stage race victory.
Rüegg, isolated, faced relentless challenges from multiple teams, particularly Lidl-Trek, repeatedly forcing her to close gaps on her own. Despite the continuous pressure, none of the attacks succeeded, leading to a reduced bunch sprint.
Rüegg admitted that defending the ochre leader's jersey was "quite a challenge."
"Honestly, they didn't make it easy for us. For sure, they tried a lot of moves, especially in the last two laps. The first three laps were actually quite OK. I expected it to be harder, and then, I was just super nervous, honestly, the whole day, I was like, I really want to bring it home," she said.
"And the team did amazing again, and so I could kind of save all my energy in the beginning and then just focused on the last two laps followed all the moves. And I could keep it until the end. I'm super happy."
Following her teammate’s wheel, Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) bided her time in the reduced peloton and opened her sprint in the final uphill metres to take the stage victory. Crossing the line one second later, Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla Jayco) finished second on the stage, just ahead of Rüegg.
“It's really good," Dygert said of the stage victory. "We came here to try to get GC and to get a stage win. And so, we really worked hard today. We went all in for the stage win because GC was kind of out of contention, so we all put in a huge effort for today, and we're really happy to pull it off.”
Rüegg topped the final general classification with 13 seconds on Smulders. Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (UNO-X Mobility) retained her third place overall, at 37 seconds in arrears.
Alyssa Polites (ARA Australian Cycling Team) sprinted to the maximum points in the second QOM of the stage to secure the mountains classification victory while Rüegg, with her stage victory and third in the finale brought home the points classification in addition to the overall.
How it unfolded
Ice vests and a spot in the air-conditioned comfort of the team mini-vans were key at the start of the 105.9 kilometre finale starting and finishing in Stirling with the temperature already creeping over 30°C before the morning start to racing. Then when it came to lining up the lumps from ice stockings tucked into the back of the jerseys were prominent.
Everyone was getting ready for a hot stage of racing, both with the temperature and action on the road, particularly as the unrelenting course provided continued GC hope to those who hadn’t made the mark on the overall they had hoped to on Willunga Hill.
When the race set off for the first of five unrelenting loops, which would deliver a total of 2,142m of elevation gain through the stage, the peloton was initially largely content to stay together. The first pass of the finish line spurred some action, with Queen of the Mountain points up for grabs and a tight battle at the top of that category. Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) had stepped into the jersey on the Willunga stage but by just one point ahead of Alyssa Polites (ARA Australian Cycling Team).
Wlodarczyk’s teammates Karlijn Swinkels and Sofia Bertizzolo came to the fore to sweep up points at 85.2km to go but Polites still grabbed one with fourth, equalling up the competition.
Niamh Fisher Black (Lidl-Trek) then triggered a flurry of attacks at 71km to go. Groups formed and were caught but the ultimate outcome was that Ella Simpson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93) kicked on out the front alone carving out a gap of 1:30 by the time the race looped through the start/finish line again at 63.2km to go.
There were points when the gap fell below a minute during the next lap, particularly when Maike van der Duin (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) strung out the peloton with her scorching attack, but Simpson kept tapping away and had pulled the margin to around two minutes as she approached Stirling for another pass.
With the kilometres ticking down to under 40km to go the flurries continued as the teams worked to put the pressure on the EF Education-Oatly team of the ochre jersey-clad Noemi Rüegg. The aggressive moves, with plenty coming from Lidl-Trek meant Simpson’s gap was quickly chewed up, with the 22-year-old swallowed up by the peloton and the race was all together at 35km to go.
Though there were soon plenty of efforts to break it apart, with Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek), who had been active through the race, off the front again, and Emily Watts tried to replicate the earlier move of her St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93 teammate but the peloton was on its toes. The toll could be seen at the back, with riders tailing off.
The attacks kept rolling as the race counted down toward 25km to go, with race leader Rüegg herself chasing down one from 2020 winner Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health).
At 21.3km to go, the battle for the QOM classification played out, with Wlodarczyk and Polites out front with teammate Nicole Frain. The former Liv-AlUla-Jayco rider played her hand to perfection, timing the sprint so she could claim top points ahead of the Polish champion by half a wheel. With that effort Polites secured the climbers jersey.
In the final lap, and down to 16km to go, Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) delivered down multiple attacks and then teammate Van der Duin put in another, getting a gap and stretching out and splintering the field in pursuit behind.
The gap was over 20 seconds as the race neared 10km to go but soon she was reeled back in. With just over 7km to go it was Lauretta Hanson’s turn to pour on the pressure onto the shrinking peloton for Lidl-Trek and then it was New Zealand champion Ella Wyllie who clipped off the front for Liv AlUla Jayco. She remained out front until around 3.5km to go and then in the final two kilometres the peloton split further after a small touch of wheels.
Into the last two kilometres and it was a group of around 20 out the front, then into the final kilometre, Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) opened up, finishing off an aggressive stage for her team with a trip to the top step.
Results
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