The team relay was on the schedule for the first day of competition. Teams were composed of one elite man, one junior, one U23 rider and one elite woman. The Italian "Azzurri" won by four seconds ahead of Switzerland and 12 seconds ahead of the Dutch team.
With two strong riders missing from Italy's team, this win came a bit of a surprise. Eva Lechner, who had started as third rider after Michele Casagrande and Gioele Bertolini was seventh fastest in her category and passed on to the last rider Luca Braidot as third. Braidot, the U23 rider, was able to pass Switzerland's Kathrin Stirnemann on the penultimate hill and took the win home for Italy.
A broken rider is like a broken wheel: useless, so in a sport obsessed with marginal gains, staying injury-free might be the biggest advantage of all. Drawing on medical research by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, James Witts analyses the stark cost of crashes, illness and lost training days
