Media Information
France shines at home to win the Youth Mixed Relay European Championships
Chamonix, 12 January 2024 – Last day of competition of the 2024 ISMF European Championships moved the races to Chamonix, in France, for the Mixed Relay, and it was Team Spain, with Ana Alonso and Oriol Cardona, bringing home the gold medal. Thibaut Anselmet and Celia Perillat-Pessey sprinted to finish in second place while Remi Bonnet and Marianne Fatton rounded up the podium.
With a night race plan at Les Plannard, in Chamonix, it was 12 teams from 12 different nations making it to the A Final, after a qualification round that only saw Team Netherlands out of the final.
Ana Alonso and Marianne Fatton were the first ones to push the race to set themselves on the lead, with Perillat-Pessey, Alba de Silvestro (ITA), Johanna Hiemer (AUT) and Mariana Jagercikova (SVK) trying to stay in touch, knowing that the fight for the medals would be among them.
Alonso managed to pass the relay to her teammate, Cardona, on the first place, with Remi Bonnet right at Cardona’s feet and pushing hard on the first ascent, but the Spaniard proved that he is always hard to beat in this type of races, and started to open a gap that ended up to be impossible to close for the rest of the field.
Bonnet tagged Fatton for the second round in second place, while Thibault Anselmet (FRA) moved to third place, just ahead of Paul Verbjnak (AUT) and Nicolo Canclini (ITA)
The second round for Ana Alonso was enough to increase her lead and stay quite comfortably thirty seconds ahead of Perillat-Pessey, who moved to the second place and never looked back. The battle for bronze was fierza, with Marianne Fatton tagging Remi Bonnet for the last leg just 8 seconds ahead of Nicolo Canclini.
In the last leg, Cardona mastered once again with smooth transitions despite the cold temperatures, to cross the finish line all smiles, stopping the clock on 30:05, thirty seconds ahead of Team France. This was the first European title for Team Spain, who was fourth in the previous European Championship and fifth at the last World Championships.
“This is a really great result for us, one that we have been searching for in the last two seasons and finally got it” said Ana Alonso after the race. “You have to keep pushing until the end because you never know what can happen on a relay race, so I just kept pushing until the end to secure the first place”, explained Cardona.
Silver was for Team France, stepping off the top spot on the podium for the first time in two years, as they were the previous world and European winners of the Mixed Relay.
After a last push, bronze was for Team Switzerland, one of the best results for the Alpine country on a Mixed Relay in the last years.
Team Austria finished in fourth place, with the youngest team in competition on today’s final, while Italy rounded up the top five.