Professional cyclist Noemi Rüegg is ambitious and selfless – now she must learn to demand and assert her position

"I think I won," says Noemi Rüegg over the team radio. Her words sound more like astonishment than jubilation. Yet Rüegg has just won the Trofeo Felanitx one-day race—her first victory among the professionals. It's January 2024, and Carmen Small, the sports director of the EF Education First-Oatly team, calls the scene "a typical Noemi Rüegg moment." She says, "We all know how strong Noemi is. But she herself is shocked every time she achieves a good result."

Since that race in Mallorca, Noemi Rüegg has continued to amaze herself. The 24-year-old has made a huge leap in performance: At the Olympic Games in Paris in the summer of 2024, she finished seventh in the road race. In January 2025, she won the queen stage and the overall ranking of the Tour Down Under, thus achieving her first World Tour race. And in March, she stood on the podium at the cycling monument Milan–Sanremo, where a women's race was held for the first time in a 20-year hiatus.

With the busy race schedule, Rüegg had little time to process the results. "I was always thinking about where I could improve," she said at a Swiss Cycling media event in May. She was supposed to be riding the Vuelta at that time, but at the end of April, she crashed at the Flèche Wallonne and broke her collarbone.

The enforced break gave Rüegg some respite before her next highlight: the Tour de Suisse begins in Gstaad on Thursday. Along with Marlen Reusser and Elise Chabbey, Rüegg is one of the strongest Swiss road cyclists. Unlike the other two, however, the Zurich native isn't a career changer; she grew up in a cycling-friendly environment. Her father, Peter, led mountain bike training at VC Steinmaur, a local club that has produced an unusually high number of professional cyclists. This includes Rüegg's brother, Timon.

As a child, she trained with the bikers without much enthusiasm, and only later, on her way to school, did she rediscover her passion for cycling. In the years that followed, she won Swiss championship titles in junior categories in cyclocross, road cycling, and time trials.

At the age of 20, Rüegg signed her first professional contract with the top Dutch team Jumbo-Visma. For two years, she learned from greats like multiple world champion and Olympic gold medalist Marianne Vos, volunteered, and adjusted to life as a professional. Then she felt more was possible – and switched to Education First: She wanted to race on her own and take on more responsibility.

That wasn't easy for her, though. "By nature, I like to help others," says Rüegg. If she's the leader in a race and her teammates are helping her, it's unusual for her. "Then I try to show gratitude and not take the other riders' work for granted."

Sports director Carmen Small, who already worked with Rüegg at Jumbo, puts it more bluntly: "She still has to learn to be a 'bitch' on the bike. To demand and assert her position." Rüegg loves racing and can mobilize all her energy when things get hectic and chaotic. But elbowing isn't in keeping with her character, says Small. Rüegg is extremely selfless, sensitive in her interactions with others, and makes sure the others on the team are doing well. She always brings chocolate for everyone to team camps.

This isn't due to a lack of ambition. Rather, the team needs to slow her down and ensure she doesn't skip any developmental steps. Small particularly praises Rüegg's work ethic. "Noemi is one of the hardest workers I've ever seen in this sport," says the former professional rider. And: "She doesn't make excuses."

Rüegg sets high standards for herself – but the team believes more than she does that she can meet them. Small is convinced: Everything will fall into place, and her performance will explode once she develops the necessary self-confidence.

Rüegg has spoken openly several times about how she had to consciously work on her self-esteem and self-confidence. In 2022, in the Swiss Olympic blog "Unfiltered," she described how defeats used to plunge her into deep crises, and she would hide away for days afterward. At that time, she began working with a mental coach because she realized that her self-esteem shouldn't depend on winning. Today, she consciously makes time for things besides cycling. And the good results boost her self-confidence. This spring, she said: "The most important thing is that I believe that what I'm doing is right."

Rüegg feels so comfortable in the EF team that she can develop her skills. In addition to all the performance goals, it's also important to the team that the riders enjoy making mistakes. Rüegg missed that in the professional, yet strict, Jumbo-Visma team. She said in the "Bus-33" podcast last year that she was almost afraid of making a mistake there.

And there are further differences between the two teams. In the podcast, Rüegg talks about a training camp with Jumbo, where the women's and men's teams stayed in the same hotel. But there was no exchange. The men had their own chef, while the women ate from the hotel buffet; the Rocket espresso machine they brought with them was only allowed for the men to use. Team EF has joint team-building events, sits at the same table during the training camp—and everyone eats the same food.

Next, Rüegg wants to work with the team to determine where she should focus her efforts in the future. That's not easy, because she's very versatile. She's quick over small mountains, a good time trialist, and extremely fast. She demonstrated these strengths this year at Milan–Sanremo: She climbed the infamous Poggio climb with the best riders and then sprinted for the win in a small group. Now Rüegg dreams of overall victory at the Tour de Suisse. Team director Small says a stage win there would be fantastic.