Marlen Reusser pops up on our video call and flashes a broad, wide, genuine grin. She’s just finished a final course recon of Strade Bianche 2025, and she has plenty to smile about. The Swiss woman is feeling good. Finally.
It has been a long and tortured road to get to this point. Throughout last year, Reusser was down and out, battling a chronic illness which she later discovered was post-Covid syndrome. She missed her home World Championships, then the Olympics, and had six months away from bike racing. At times, when she was at her lowest, Reusser wasn’t even thinking about being back in the peloton. Instead, she was wondering if she would ever be able to live a normal life again, where mundane tasks didn't feel exhausting.
Fast forward to the start of the 2025 season and she’s thriving on her new team, Movistar, and already has a victory on the road. Marlen Reusser is well and truly back – potentially better than ever.
“To feel this good is pretty unexpected and pretty overwhelming. The contrast to last year is crazy,” Reusser says with a rueful shake of the head.
“Last year sometimes I was in a really bad place. Sad about everything. But I came to the point that I didn't care about bike races, because it was more about my health. It didn’t matter if I did the Olympic Games or not, it was like, can you live a life again? There are people with the sickness I have who have been stuck in bed for 30 years, no one knows about them. They don’t have energy to do interviews. They are hidden.”
As a trained doctor, Reusser’s own, extensive research into her condition was what helped her recover from post-Covid, a chronic illness for which there is a lack of expertise in the medical world. She speaks in detail about the cultural differences she noticed between countries in their approach to post-Covid syndrome – it was by adopting some unique practices that Reusser found her eventual solution.
“I was researching my condition and, to be honest, subconsciously I never thought it would be me who would have an illness like this. I needed some time myself to understand that it's it and the knowledge among medical personnel is not so broad,” Reusser explains. “Somebody convinced me of an alternative approach to get out of it. I was pretty critical of it at first, but I really found it helped me.”
Reusser is keen to stress that the approach she used to get over post-Covid is not something that is guaranteed to work for everyone – she has an acute understanding that chronic illnesses are a delicate subject on which there is not enough education.
“It’s a common belief that you should pace yourself when you have a chronic illness, doing half of what you think you can do so as not to waste energy. I found that doing the opposite thing worked for me. It’s like if you were a car, the warning light comes on if you get the symptoms of being sick, so you look for the sickness, but actually there isn’t any. There’s a link between your subconscious and consciousness, so you can try to enter these circles that keep you sick and keep your energy low and work on these. I did meditation and hypnosis. I started to do yoga for the first time. I had to get out of this circle of not doing anything because that was what was making me so tired. I started to do things I was afraid of and slowly it didn’t make me tired anymore.
"The symptoms are the sickness, normally symptoms give you the idea that you have a sickness beyond the symptoms, but in this case no, you only have the warning lights on but you do not have a known disease. It was not just doing things that helped me, but a different approach and vision that allowed me to to get healthy slowly and start doing things. Nothing happens from nowhere – unfortunately there’s some people that cannot come back,” Reusser says.
The 33-year-old is passionate about raising awareness and educating others about chronic illnesses and has plenty of resources on her Instagram surrounding the topic. While she acknowledges that her period of suffering from post-Covid syndrome was one of the most difficult times of her life, she also can see some good that has come out of it. Having such an extended break from professional racing means that Reusser is fresher than ever for her comeback year in 2025.
“I think cycling is pretty crazy in terms of how many big competitions we have. Sometimes when you start training again in winter, you’re still a bit tired. This year I come with really new energy,” Reusser explains. “Sometimes I think we should consider taking those bigger breaks. If someone says they are having a season out for no reason and just want to come back the following year, it would be really unheard of to say this, but actually it’s not such a strange idea.”
Leaving SD Worx-Protime for a new chapter with Movistar is also something that Reusser attributes her positive mindset to. She spent three seasons with the Dutch team and secured her biggest wins as part of the squad, but she was constantly fighting for leadership on a roster stacked with superstars. At Movistar, the hierarchy is much clearer, something that allows focus and peace of mind.
“SD Worx knew for a long time that I wanted to leave. They were very supportive of me last year and I have to acknowledge that both them and Movistar kept believing in me during my illness. They told me to take my time and that helped me a lot to concentrate on getting out of that sickness and recovering,” Reusser says. “It was me, Lotte [Kopecky] and Demi [Vollering] all on one team, which was a bit special. It wasn’t the situation I wanted to be in anymore. Not because they aren’t nice people, but because I want to race against them.”
Reusser’s switch to Movistar is one of many big moves in the women’s peloton for the 2025 season. With Vollering also leaving SD Worx and joining FDJ-Suez, the former number-one ranked Women’s WorldTour team no longer has a monopoly of all the best riders. This has led to a shift in power dynamics for the first time in a number of years, something that was clear at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the opening race of the women’s Classics season. Little-known rider Lotte Claes ended up taking a surprise win from the breakaway after they were given an advantage of up to 14 minutes during the race. Behind, it was a stalemate between the big favourites.
“Actually that was a race between sports directors, they were the main characters in that situation,” Reusser laughs when discussing Omloop. “With this new peloton, it’s about who will take responsibility. There were discussions about who would ride and I didn’t like the race anyway because it was so dangerous due to it being super slow. People were getting quite stressed but I enjoyed the show, to be honest. It wasn’t up to Movistar as we have some strong, top riders but we don’t have the strength in numbers.”
The 33-year-old admits that Omloop wasn’t one of her key goals for this season. With the climbing prowess she’s shown so far this year (Reusser won the Trofeo Palma Femina in January and finished in second place at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana in between Vollering and Van der Breggen a few months later), other races are better suited to her strengths. She believes that although her former teammate Vollering is the standout favourite to dominate this season, it’s not out of the realms of possibility that Reusser can pose a challenge to the Dutchwoman.
“I can climb well and the moment Demi attacked in Valencia I was a bit distracted and I’m actually sad I was not on the wheel,” she says. “I also think in other races there will be dynamics in the peloton and maybe I will be able to have a look and try something in certain moments. At Flanders in the past for example, we came to the start with four leaders which was a crazy situation. I’m happy now that at Movistar it’s Liane [Lippert] and me, that’s much easier.”
Looking ahead to later in the year, Reusser explains that the Giro d'Italia Women and the Tour of Flanders, alongside the time trial World Championships, are big goals for the season. She firmly believes that Movistar is the team which is going to lift her to reach these lofty ambitions. With the nightmare of the last season behind her, Reusser is refreshed, energised and for the first time in a long time, her future looks stunningly bright.
“I think it’s this joyful, Spanish culture on Movistar and the passion. I feel really comfortable here. Every new beginning has some beauty, it doesn't matter where you go, it's always special. The feeling here is really positive. If I look back to when I started with SD Worx I was a new rider with a small contract,” Reusser remembers.
“They slowly understood how strong I was but I was always a little bit behind the other girls who were big names. I think I was seeking for my own place, to really be able to give it everything and do what I believe I can do. I’m curious to see where I go now.”
