Ruegg turns screw to defend Tour Down Under title

Roger Vaughan | January 19, 2026

Switzerland’s Noemi Ruegg has defied three-against-one odds to successfully defend her Tour Down Under title.

Ruegg (EF Education Oatly) sprinted clear of three UAE Team ADQ riders on Monday to win stage three and claim the women’s event again.

The 24-year-old is only the second multiple winner of the Santos Women’s Tour, after Australian great Amanda Spratt won three in a row from 2017-19.

Ruegg was dropped on the first of two ascents of the pivotal Corkscrew Rd climb.

But the pocket rocket fought back brilliantly on the second climb and the race came down to the front group of four at the finish.

Teammates Dominika Wlodarczyk, Mavi Garcia and Paula Blasi could not shake Ruegg, who easily outsprinted them in the last few hundred metres of the 126.5km stage.

Spratt (Lidl Trek), who will retire at the end of the season, was prominent late in the stage and finished seventh overall.

The race predictably detonated on the first 2.4km climb up Corkscrew with 25km l

Breakaway riders, Austrian Carina Schrempf (Fenix-Premier Tech) and New Zealand’s Mikayla Harvey (SD Worx-Protime) were summarily caught and dropped.

Ruegg struggled as Canadian Sarah Van Dam (Visma-Lease A Bike) went clear on the steep climb with Spaniard Garcia and her Polish teammate Wlodarczyk.

With 10.7km left, Wlodarczyk was alone at the front and her two fellow breakaway riders were caught by the reduced peloton.

On the second climb, Ruegg’s Canadian teammate, reigning world road champion Magdaleine Vallieres was dropped with 7km left after doing a power of work for her.

Seconds later, the famed “Spratt Attack” was launched as the Australian led the chase across to Wlodarczyk.

But by the top of the climb, Spratt had been distanced and the four leaders were away.

Then came the high-speed 6km descent to the finish at Campbelltown in the Adelaide foothills.

While New Zealander Ally Wollaston started the day with a 14-second lead after winning the first two stages, she admitted it “could be a miracle” to stay with the leaders after the ascents of Corkscrew.

Sure enough, Wollaston did not feature among the leaders at the end of the stage.

Before the stage started on the Parade in suburban Norwood, F1 driver Valterri Bottas made himself useful.

He posted a video “helping” his Australian partner Tiffany Cromwell prepare for the day’s racing.

Cromwell is a key domestique rider in the Canyon-SRAM team.

This was the first time in Tour history that a stage featured two climbs up Corkscrew Rd, a popular local cycling landmark.

It is the key feature this year in the Women’s Tour, which featured all 14 WorldTour teams for the first time.