The French dominated the Elite Mixed Team Relay at the UEC European Road Championships in Slovenia on Tuesday, taking a third title in the event.

Riding the 44km course in 1:00:29, they obliterated the World Champion Italian team, beating them by a whopping 1:12. The battle for third place was much closer, with the Luxembourg team taking the bronze medal, 27 seconds faster than the Polish team in fourth place.

Despite losing one of their number early in the first leg, the French men’s squad of Bruno Amirail, Remi Cavagna and Thibault Guernalec led from start to finish, setting the fastest time at each of the time checks and handing over to the women in a clear first place.

Anchored by Juliette Berthet, Cédrine Kerbaol and Maeva Squiban, the French continued to fly, putting more time into the Italian team and even catching the Polish team, who started four minutes ahead of them.

For their part, the Italian squad of Mattia Cattaneo, Marco Frigo, Matteo Sobrero, Elisa Longo Borghini, Monica Trinca Colonel and Alessia Vigilia held on for the first lap, but when Trinca Colonel was dropped early on lap two, they lost time quickly.

“It’s really cool. I think there is kind of a prophecy,” Cédrine Kerbaol said. “We did three times second in Worlds and now it’s the third time we get the title at Europeans, so we are really happy. For sure, it was not won in advance, the Italians are really, really strong, and the last days have been a bit hard with recovery from the Worlds.”

Cavagna offered the slightest insight into the French excellence in the discipline, saying, “We train a lot for this, it’s really important for France because we love this, we always race here for win. We always work together to be strong and to be the strongest, and today we were the strongest.”

How it unfolded

Only six nations took to the start on Šenčur for the 44km race, the equal fewest which comprised two laps of the circuit used to close all the road races, which included the climb to Možjanca and its brutal gradients up to 15%. Each nation field a six-rider team, their three men riding the first 22km lap, with the women starting their once the second man completed his race. The team’s time was taken when the second woman crossed the line.

The home Slovenian squad were first off, their three men heading down the ramp at 15:30 local time and setting a time of 30:18 at the changeover. Behind them, though, France were flying, seeing a fastest time of 13:15 at the opening split, 8km into their ride, some 26 seconds quicker than World Champions Italy, the final team to set off.

At the change, the French were by far the fastest team, eclipsing the Slovenians, stopping the clock at 28:03, more than two minutes faster than the Slovenians and some 24 seconds faster than the Italians, who had failed to make up any time from the first time check.

Further down the running order, some of the other teams struggled badly, their stronger riders being forced to slow for their compatriots to ensure two riders were together at the finish.

While the Italian team had two changes from the six riders who won the World Championships in Canada last month – meaning four of them ride in the rainbow stripes and two in the azure of the Italian team – the French had only one substitution, Jordan Labrosse being replaced by Guernalec, allowing them more continuity.

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