Marlen Reusser will continue with SD Worx until the end of 2024, the team announced Saturday, with the Dutch WorldTour squad renewing the leading Swiss racer’s contract for a third successive season.
Reusser, 31, joined SD Worx in 2022 from the Alé BTC Ljubljana squad and has now inked a fresh one-year deal.
The team revealed in the contract news press statement that Reusser’s 2024 season will be largely focused on the Olympic Time Trial, an event where she took silver in Tokyo in 2021.
But she will also be looking to continue to build on her growing palmares in the Spring Classics, which includes a victory this year in Gent-Wevelgem and seventh place in Flanders.
Post-Olympics, Reusser said, she will be taking aim at the time trial at the World Championships on home soil in Switzerland, a race in which she has had three podium finishes in the last four years.
In the same press release Reusser herself confirmed that after next spring, she would be concentrating completely for the rest of the season on her racing against the clock.
“First, there is the Olympic time trial in Paris, then I will focus on the time trial in the World Championships that will take place in my home country of Switzerland in Zurich in September. Those are going to be two major goals.”
Regarding her contract extensions, Reusser said she was still learning how to perform better but that since joining SD Worx at the end of 2021, she had already learned a lot and that one notable high point had been winning the gravel stage of the Tour de France.
“We are very satisfied with Marlen,” indicated sports manager Danny Stam in the same statement. “It is nice to see how she is developing in the Classics. She has made steps in this field by improving tactically.”
“Apart from her own win in Gent-Wevelgem, she has also had a big part in the team’s successes in the other Classics this spring.”
SD Worx have dominated the Classics this year, with Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes and Lotte Kopecky, as well as Reusser, all taking notable successes. Vollering is the odds-on favourite for victory on Sunday in Liège-Bastogne-Liège after her emphatic wins earlier this week in Amstel Gold and La Flèche Wallonne.
“Next year, after the Spring Classics, Marlen can focus completely on the time trial,” Stam concluded. “We will support her optimally in this.”
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