One could easily say Elise Chabbey is among the most versatile athletes on the planet, but even that wouldn’t deliver a complete picture of the Swiss cyclist’s extraordinarily wide array of talents both in competition and away from the sport. At 32 years old, she appears to be reaching cycling maturity with FDJ-Suez, the team she joined at the turn of the year and with which she is delivering her best season to date. But Chabbey has already lived multiple lives, as an Olympic canoer, a decorated runner, an avid skier and an active doctor – as well as a self-proclaimed partyer.
“I came back from the Tour, we partied, I was sick for three days, I went to a wedding, I didn’t recover well,” she told Swiss newspaper Le Temps a couple of weeks ago, after ruling the Tour de Romandie Féminin. “I told the team: ‘Honestly, I’m coming because it’s at home’!” And she proved to still have more than enough fuel in her engine to take her first UCI Women’s WorldTour successes: stage 2, atop a brutal final climb to La Tzoumaz (12.8km at 8.1%) and the overall standings.
Her moral of the story: “One should party more often!”
An Olympian and doctor
Fun and dedication have always been integral to Chabbey’s path. She was born in Geneva and raised in the mountains. At two years old, she was already making her first waves as a kayaker, emulating her father. Her first sport led her to the 2012 Olympic Games. A final was on the cards but, at 18 years old, pressure caught up on her (20th in the heats). She continued kayaking for a year before focusing on medical studies.
Seemingly gifted in everything she undertakes, Chabbey got her diploma and started running. She thought she was done with competition… But she’s just too talented. She won Geneva’s half marathon, and had a blast in vertical kilometre events and trails, until an injury put cycling on her path as part of her rehab. After only two years of practice, she turned professional in 2018, immediately impressed, and rapidly saw her cycling career being put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic… at which point she embraced her medical career!
“At first they just asked if I could come in and help out, even for a week or two,” she said at the time in an interview with Velo. “But there are just more and more cases and now, considering the current situation, I decided to stay.”
A strong 2025 with a stellar summer
Cycling resumed, and she returned, moving up the ladder. Her first victory - the Swiss National Champion title - came at the very end of 2020, before signing with Canyon//SRAM Racing (now Canyon//SRAM Racing zondacrypto), her team until the end of 2024, a year also marked by her second participation in the Olympic Games, this time on her bike (she finished 18th in the road race). Notable results during her four years with her first UCI Women’s WorldTeam also include a stage win in the Tour de Suisse Women 2021 (and 2nd overall), and top-5 results in UCI Women’s WorldTour events such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, Itzulia Women, Vuelta a Burgos Feminas…
These were just glimpses of Chabbey’s abilities on the road, well observed this season after joining FDJ-Suez, a super team in the making around Demi Vollering, Juliette Labous, Ally Wollaston, and other special talents. Since the Santos Tour Down Under (5th overall) in Australia at the beginning of the season, she’s impressed with consistent performances. After returning to winning ways in stage 1 of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina she was ready to be one of the main stars of the summer.
A second title of National Champion escaped her at the end of June (2nd to Steffi Häberlin) but she got to wear special colours at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, claiming the polka-dot jersey on the very first day and keeping it all the way to the finish in Châtel, close to the border between France and Switzerland, also close to the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), another challenge she dreams of taking on.
Trailing will have to wait a while, but there’s little doubt Elise Chabbey would excel in the UTMB. It would appear she can do it all.