Four national teams participated in the Team Relay event of this European Cyclo-cross Championships, with the French as reigning European champions who could not repeat in Pontevedra due to the dominance of the Italian team from start to finish, spending all the laps in the lead.
In the first lap, the dominance was alternating between the Galician rider Miguel Rodríguez and the Italian Federico Ceolin, who reached the finish line with a slight advantage over the Frenchman Théophile Vassal. On the second lap, the Italian junior Mattia Agostinacchio could not get away from Benjamín Noval while the Frenchman Aubin Sparfel saw the two leading riders slip away. On the next lap, junior Lucia Bramati was able to slightly extend her lead over Galician Lorena Patiño, who saw how French rider Célia Gery made a spectacular lap leaving behind the first two bad laps of the French team. She managed to overtake Patiño and linked up with the transalpine rider in the lead. Little by little, the French and the Italian team were getting on well in the lead and neither Aroa Otero nor Sofia Rodriguez managed to cut the advantage for the interests of the Spanish team.
The last lap was faced with two clear fights, the fight for the gold between Filippo Agostinacchio and Rémi Lelandais, and the fight for the bronze between the Valencian Felipe Orts, who wore a black ribbon in memory of the victims of the DANA in his homeland, and Michael Boros who entered the fight after an impressive lap of the Czech Kristyna Zemanova. It would be the boards that would dictate sentence in the fight for third place, with Felipe Orts once again showing his great skill on the bike, and the Czech Boros could not follow, while in the fight for the championship, it would be the final ramp that would discard the Frenchman from the fight with Agostinacchio. Italy managed to raise its arms and proclaim itself the new European champion in the Team Relay.
Enrico della Casa, president of the European Cycling Union and José Luis López Cerrón, president of the management commission of the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation, were present at the awards ceremony.
Tomorrow will be the big day of the European Cyclo-cross Championships in Pontevedra, with the individual continental championships in the junior categories starting at 9am; under-23 from 11am; and elite from 14:10pm. The junior races can be followed in streaming on the Youtube channel of the Federación Ciclismo Galego, while the under-23 and elite races will have live television coverage. The entrance to the circuit is free and all the attendees will be able to enjoy both the Expo Zone and the Gastro Wristbands to eat and drink at the food and beverage stands.