Top favourite Switzerland misses out on gold in the Mixed Relay due to Küng's misfortune; Italy capitalises

The Mixed Relay at the World Cycling Championships was won by Italy. With riders including Filippo Ganna and Elisa Longo Borghini, they finished eight seconds faster than France. Top favorite Switzerland took the bronze, but suffered an early setback when Stefan Küng dropped out. Led by Marlen Reusser, the women were then unable to close the gap.

The Mixed Relay remains a special event at the World Cycling Championships. It replaced the World Team Time Trial for professional teams, but after a few interesting editions, it did lose some of its prestige. Many countries chose not to send their strongest riders, and some even stayed home altogether.

Great Britain, The USA, The Netherlands and Belgium opted out of the event in 2026. But the teams that were there had high ambitions. France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Norway all fielded their strongest possible teams, hoping to win a medal or more.

However, the first group of participating countries didn't seem to have much ambition. Of those teams, Estonia was by far the strongest: with Red Bull prospect Romet Pajur among the men on the team, they posted a time of 25:50, after which the women only extended the lead. At the finish line, the gap to China was a full 1:42 minutes.

Of course, we were waiting for the truly major cycling nations. In the second heat, we already saw some serious medal contenders. And Poland, Norway, Canada, and Spain were all faster in the men’s race. At the relay point, Spain had posted the fastest time: Norway was 13 seconds behind, while Poland and Canada were already nearly half a minute behind.

Iván Romeo, Héctor Álvarez, and Eñaut Urkaregi had set up a great opportunity for the women, and Sandra Alonso, Mireia Benito, and Paula Blasi finished it off. Spain had thus set the bar high for Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, and defending champion Australia: they would have to beat the time of 52.43 minutes.

Switzerland had a truly top-notch team, with Stefan Bissegger and Stefan Küng on the men’s side and Marlen Reusser on the women’s, but things went wrong very early on. Küng broke his handlebars after a few kilometers and had to switch bikes. He watched his compatriots disappear over the horizon, as they had to cover nearly twenty kilometers together.

Still, they were the fastest at the first checkpoint, although Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, and France were all within five seconds. At the second checkpoint, the Swiss naturally began to lose time, and even more at the relay point. The Italians had posted the fastest time thanks to the hard work of Filippo Ganna, Matteo Sobrero, and Mattia Cattaneo. They were 25 seconds faster than Spain, but France and Australia managed to squeeze in between them.

And so it was far from over. Those two countries conceded just over ten seconds, while Switzerland—with Reusser, of course—had to make up 35 seconds. But Italy had a rock-solid lineup, featuring Elisa Longo Borghini (4th in the World Championship time trial), Vittoria Guazzini (10th), and Monica Trinca Colonel. They pulled away from every other country, but the Swiss did manage to close the gap.

World champion Reusser was the driving force, but the gap was still well over half a minute. Italy went all out, smashing Germany’s time and claiming the gold. The Australian women were quickly down to two and had to worry about the Swiss. Reusser delivered a fantastic finish, which was good enough for bronze. France took the silver.

1. Italy
2. France +0.08
3. Switzerland +0.19
4. Australia +0.40
5. Germany + 0.48