Road European Championships: France celebrates elite TTT mixed relay title on home roads

Host nation France secured a nail-bitingly close victory in the elite TTT mixed relay race at the UEC Road European Championships, beating defending champions Italy by just seven seconds.

Italy were ahead by 23 seconds at the mid-way point of the undulating 40-kilometre course in Étoile-sur-Rhone, but France then steadily pulled back time to claim their second triumph in the same event in three years.

Switzerland repeated their bronze medal finish of the World Championships elite mixed TTT relay, 40 seconds down on France but comfortably ahead of Germany, fourth at 1:25.

Despite the scant startlist of just seven nations, the tense battle between Italy and France made for a thrilling finale all the same, with the women's trio of Cédrine Kerbaol, Juliette Labous and Marion Borras largely ensuring the gold medal would go to the home side.

"It was really close, the guys did a really good job first, we started quite fast with the girls, and we had quite some time on the Swiss team," Labous said afterwards.

"I thought that was why we were suffering so much. But we gave it everything and even on the climb we gained some time, in the end the time was in our favour so it's really nice."

"It's very special, today two years ago, we also won this discipline," said Remi Cavagna of the French men's team, "so it was really important for us, we did our maximum and the girls saved us in the end, so it's nice."

How it unfolded

Held over a hilly two-lap course with a short, punchy climb to conclude each circuit, each country fielded three men for the first lap, followed by three women for the second. In both laps, times were taken on a country's second rider across the line.

Ukraine's men set an initial time to beat of 24:29 at the top of the winding ascent through Étoile-sur-Rhone, but that was rapidly and clearly superceded by Luxembourg with the men's group register of 23:00. At the end of the second lap, Luxembourg's women squad amply confirmed that promising result, finishing 1:23 ahead of Ukraine.

With time triallists of the category of Marlen Reusser and Stefan Küng in their line-up, Switzerland were expected to have a major impact. But if Reusser's mechanical issues in the TTT at the Worlds arguably cost Switzerland a better result eight days ago, this time in France an unexpected early bike change needed by Küng did them no favours at all. As it was, when the Swiss men's side completed their lap, they were only one second faster than pacesetters Luxembourg.

Italy's men, on the other hand, having no such issues, powering to an 11-second advantage - and setting the best time in the process - over France at the first checkpoint after eight kilometres. The only team with a time under 20 minutes as they started the final ascent, former double World TT rainbow jersey holder and recent European runner-up Filippo Ganna was visibly doing the lion's share of the work in Italy's collective time trial effort as well.

So it was no surprise that when Italy crested the climb in the centre of Étoile-sur-Rhone, the defending Euro champions had an advantage of 23 seconds on closest challengers France. Switzerland, meanwhile, were at 41 seconds, with Luxembourg at 46 seconds.

France, though, were not going to give up easily on home soil, as the three top riders in this year's National TT Championships - gold medallist Kerbaol, runner-up Labous and bronze medallist Borras - put on an exceptionally well-coordinated showing in the second part of the race. At 44 seconds faster than Switzerland with 12 kilometres to go, it boded well for their effort, and when at the same checkpoint Italy were only able to maintain their narrowing lead on France by 14 seconds, it was clear that a real fight for gold was developing.

After the loss of a rider as experienced as former double National TT Champion Elena Cecchini from their trio even before Italy reached the halfway point, alarm bells began ringing even more seriously. That said, riders of the calibre of specialist Vittoria Guazzini and newly-crowned U23 European TT champion Federica Venturelli were hardly likely to give up easily, meaning their options on a third title were shrinking fast - but still intact.

At the finish, Switzerland slashed a massive 1:24 off Luxembourg's time to move into an all-but-certain podium spot. But they were instantly overshadowed by Labous and Kerbaol making a massive, well-calculated effort on the final, perpetually twisting climb through narrow streets and crossing the line 40 seconds faster than the Swiss.

On the final ascent, though, for Italy it was nailbiting stuff, with just a quarter of a second's advantage on France at the foot of the climb forcing Guazzini and Venturelli to dig as deep as they possibly could on the very last part of the course.

But their effort proved in vain, as the clock switched to red in the closing metres, confirming France had shown just enough strength in the second half to clinch the title. No-one could accuse the Italians of giving up without a fight, though, making for one of the most exciting recent time trial finales of the 2025 season.

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