For Noemi Rüegg, the Tour Down Under marked a major milestone for the EF Education-Oatly rider with bib number one on her back. The Swiss rider had a breakout season in 2025, which began on similar roads out of Adelaide and led to her first Women’s WorldTour overall race victory. She’ll begin defence of her title on Saturday, with three stages for the women’s Tour Down Under concluding on Monday, January 19.
Number one was a huge motivation for the 2026 campaign, her third season with the EF squad and the first year the team competes at the WorldTour level after gaining top-tier status at the end of last season.
“It’s the first time I will actually wear bib number one, so that’s really special,” Rüegg said in a team press release. “To defend something will be a new situation for me, but I’ll try to take it as I did last year, with as little pressure as possible and just try to enjoy being back here, just to take this as a motivation that I’m the defending champion.”
This year, Rüegg will have the World Champion on her side, Magdeleine Vallieres, both taking part in a Tour Down Under press conference on Friday, one day ahead of the race start. Both 24-year-olds are joined on the start list by New Zealander Henrietta Christie, team debutants Alice Towers of Great Britain and Stina Kagevi, the Swede just 20.
“I think we have a really strong team. It’s very diverse, so we have a lot of different qualities and strengths within the team, and I’m sure that together we are super strong. Every individual is strong, and we can play different cards and use our own strengths, and we’ll do the best that we can.”
“We have a very strong women’s peloton this year, with all the WorldTour teams being at the start line. Yeah, if I look to my left, I think I have some strong competitors here,” the race champion said at the press conference, casting a glance to see Australian road champion Mackenzie Coupland (Liv AlUla Jayco) and Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto), who won stage 3 last year in Stirling.
What was known was that course changes would factor into a completely new race in its 10th edition for the women. Of course, last year Rüegg used a victory on the Willunga Hill stage to move…
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