TakeWorlds3 weeks ago
Reusser trailed at the first split. By the finish she'd beaten Bäckstedt by 40 seconds and Vollering by 1:50. The flat Montreal course was supposed to be where Reusser's edge narrowed — instead Vollering, the rider who won both the Giro and the Tour de France Femmes this season, finished 8th on the one parcours built to remove her climbing disadvantage.
At the first intermediate check, Reusser sat 5th at 10 seconds down and Vollering 13th at 35 seconds down. By the third split Reusser had gone fastest overall, 14 seconds clear of Bäckstedt, while Vollering had slid to 10th, 1:25 back. Bäckstedt, 21 and making her elite Worlds debut, took silver just 5.43 seconds ahead of bronze medalist Franziska Koch — proof the hype around her was earned. Vollering's season-long dominance turns out to be narrow-spectrum: unbeatable on the terrain that suits her, absent on the one that shouldn't have mattered.
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