European Championships: France win mixed relay TTT ahead of Italy

The French team powered to victory in the European Championships mixed relay team time trial in Drenthe, earning a first gold medal in the discipline for Juliette Labous, Cédrine Kerbaol, Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Bruno Amirail, Rémi Cavagna and Benjamin Thomas.

The French outfit just edged out the Italians on the line to win by four seconds, whilst Germany rounded out the podium in third.

World champions Switzerland struggled after losing their powerhouse Stefan Küng to a nasty crash in the men’s individual time trial, opening up the door for Worlds silver medallists France to step up to the top spot of the podium, and win the European title for the first time.

“We knew that we had a really good [women’s] team,” France’s Benjamin Thomas said at the finish. “And the objective was to put them in the best condition, and they did really an incredible performance and gained like 25 seconds - in a race like this, it’s very impressive.

“It’s really special. For me it’s like the team pursuit on the track - it’s a really specific effort, you have to be really careful about the position, keep the speed, stay really grouped. We are really happy. It was more or less the same team as at Worlds, I came in [as a change], so it’s incredible.”

It was the Netherlands who set the early fastest time, leaning on their strong team of time trialists to beat Belgium and Poland, despite losing their third rider prematurely in the women’s leg, but finishing well with Riejanne Markus and Loes Adegeest.

Their time didn’t last for too long, though, as Italy - who had gone faster than the Netherlands in the men’s leg - held their speed through the women’s half of the relay to go more than 30 seconds faster than the Netherlands and take the lead.

However, Italy had France hot on their heels throughout the whole race, who were chasing a top result after just missing out on the world title in Glasgow a month ago. The men hadn’t set the fastest time, so the trio of women - made up of Labous, Kerbaol and Cordon-Ragot - had a lot of work to do, but managed to make up more than 20 seconds over their 19km portion of the race.

It was Cordon-Ragot who peeled off first, leaving Labous and Kerbaol to push on for the line, and in the end it was a sprint to the finish with the French duo stopping the clock just four seconds faster than the Italians, all but securing the European title with one team still to finish.

After France had finished, it only left world champions Switzerland to finish, but they were on the back foot after setting a slower men’s time in the absence of Stefan Küng, and eventually finished nearly a minute adrift of France in sixth, a disappointing outing for their rainbow jerseys.

This confirmed victory for the French squad, who became the fourth nation to take the title in this discipline, joining the Netherlands, Germany and Italy on the honours list.