Tour de Suisse Women

Tour de Suisse Women is a five-day WorldTour cycling stage race held each June in Switzerland. First run in 2021, it delivers Alpine climbing and time trialing in a condensed format that rewards stage-racing depth and fast recovery between mountain efforts.

Tour de Suisse Women is Switzerland’s stage race on the Women’s WorldTour, held since 2021 and at first over two days around Frauenfeld. Since 2026 it has run over five days alongside the men’s Tour de Suisse. Marlen Reusser has won it three times, and nobody else has won it twice.

How Tour de Suisse Women started in 2021

A five-day Tour de Suisse for women was held in 2001 and won by the American Kim Baldwin. The present race dates from 2021, and the organizer counts that year as its first edition. Swiss Cycling, members of the Swiss parliament and the Tour de Suisse organizers set it up in the year Switzerland marked 50 years of women’s suffrage. Funding was hard to find. On June 5, 2021, a field of 96 riders started in Frauenfeld for two stages and 210.1 kilometers.

Lizzie Deignan wins the first edition by one second

Elise Chabbey beat Lizzie Deignan in a two-rider finish on the opening stage, and the time bonuses gave her a lead of four seconds. The second stage was 11 laps of a flat circuit around Frauenfeld, with bonus seconds at three intermediate sprints. Deignan’s Trek-Segafredo team held the race together for them. Chabbey had crashed early in the stage and could not contest the sprints.

Deignan won the first sprint and was second in the next, which gave her five seconds and the lead. Marta Bastianelli won the stage from a late breakaway. Deignan took the race by one second, along with the points and mountains classifications.

Brand and Faulkner reach the last corner together in 2022

The second edition moved up to the UCI ProSeries and had four stages, a time trial among them. Kristen Faulkner won the time trial in Vaduz and led the race into the final stage, 98.5 kilometers from Chur over the Wolfgangpass to a summit finish at Lantsch/Lenz. Lucinda Brand attacked on a wet descent with Jolanda Neff, took three bonus seconds at a sprint and started the last climb 50 seconds ahead.

Faulkner chased almost alone and caught Brand 1.2 kilometers from the top. Brand led into the final bend, with 200 meters to go, and Faulkner slid out behind her. She got up to finish 15 seconds later, and Brand won the race by 17 seconds. Pauliena Rooijakkers was third at 1 minute 19 seconds.

Marlen Reusser chases her own yellow jersey in 2023

In 2023 the race joined the Women’s WorldTour. Reusser took the lead by winning the time trial from St. Gallen to Abtwil, eight seconds ahead of her SD Worx teammate Demi Vollering. On the last stage, around Ebnat-Kappel, Kasia Niewiadoma went on a 50-kilometer attack and rode into the virtual lead. Niamh Fisher-Black, another SD Worx rider, stayed on her wheel.

Reusser was two and a half minutes behind when she left the chasing group on a descent, 25 kilometers from the finish. Riding alone, she cut the gap to 37 seconds by the line. Fisher-Black won the stage and Reusser won the race, 1 minute 2 seconds ahead of Vollering. She was the first Swiss winner.

Vollering wins three of four stages in 2024

Vollering led the 2024 race from the first day to the last. She won the opening stage at Villars-sur-Ollon and then the uphill time trial of 15.7 kilometers from Aigle to the same resort. Neve Bradbury won the third stage, to Champagne on Lake Neuchâtel.

On the final stage, also at Champagne, Niewiadoma attacked 10.4 kilometers from the finish. Elisa Longo Borghini, Vollering and Bradbury joined her, and Vollering won the sprint of four. Bradbury was second overall at 1 minute 28 seconds, two seconds ahead of Longo Borghini.

Reusser wins again in 2025 with a solo at Küssnacht

The 2025 race still had four stages, but they covered 509.7 kilometers, against 327.4 a year earlier. Reusser, now with Movistar, had missed much of 2024 with post-Covid syndrome. She beat Vollering in a two-rider finish at Gstaad on the first day and kept the yellow jersey to the end.

The last stage, around Küssnacht, climbed the Michaelskreuzstrasse, 3.9 kilometers at 9.1 percent. Reusser set the pace on it, attacked after the descent with 9.5 kilometers left and won alone by 28 seconds. Her margin over Vollering in the final standings was 36 seconds.

The five-day race in 2026 and a third win for Reusser

In 2026 the women’s and men’s races were held on the same days, over five stages that each started and finished in the same place. They began in Sondrio, in Italy, and ended at Villars-sur-Ollon. Longo Borghini took the lead at Locarno on the second day. Reusser, the time trial world champion, won the 23.7-kilometer time trial at Aarburg and moved into yellow, 10 seconds ahead of her.

The final stage crossed the Col de la Croix and finished with an 11-kilometer climb to Villars-sur-Ollon. Reusser rode clear of her last two companions in the final kilometer and won by seven seconds from Cédrine Kerbaol, who was also second overall. It was Reusser’s second win in a row and her third in six editions.

This race compresses serious climbing into a short window where every stage carries weight. The Swiss Alps deliver steep gradients and technical descents that separate pure climbers from all-rounders, while the time trial rewards riders who can sustain power after consecutive mountain days. Marlen Reusser has won three editions on home roads (2023, 2025, 2026), combining climbing resilience with time-trial strength. The race sits at a pivotal moment in the season, offering a final test of form before the Tour de France Femmes and a chance to see who can handle hard days back-to-back without cracking.