World Cycling Championships 2023 - Switzerland defend rainbow stripes and triumph in mixed team time trial

Switzerland clinched glory in the mixed team time trial after a dominant display to triumph at the World Cycling Championships in Glasgow.

The format was an interesting twist on the traditional team time trial, with each nation’s three chosen men taking to the course first, before handing over to their women. The men’s time, combined with that of the women, produced the total for each country.

Switzerland knew what they needed to do to retain the title over the total distance of 39km on the course in Scotland, and they produced the goods to beat second-placed France by seven seconds.

The 20km course, of which each nation's male and female trio would complete a single lap, was almost identical to the city circuit several of the male riders - most notably Switzerland's Stefan Kung - completed 10 turns around on Sunday.

The Swiss started out as strong favourites, and as incumbent champions, would be last down the ramp, with a team representing Afghanistan heading out first.

The Afghans were never likely to trouble the leaderboard and, indeed struggled to stay together for much of the circuit, but their taking part was always more important than any result they could achieve. The same could be said for the team of Ukraine, whose male riders began their ride's 20 minutes later. Roars greeted Maksym Bilyi, Vitalii Novakovskiyi, and Dmytro Polupan as they headed out into the Glasgow sunshine.

Strong performances from their men and women meant Uzbekistan was the first team to complete the course in under an hour, and achieve a time that would ultimately be good enough for 13th out of 18.

The lesser fancied nations having completed their runs, the more established took to the Glasgow streets. Spain flattered to deceive, with a worst of the rest time that was not even enough for the top 10.

Italy's men gave the second half of their team a strong position to build on, as Alberto Bettiol and Matteo Cattania set what at that point was the fastest run by any of the male sides.

The French team, made up of two national TT champions, Bruno Armirail and Remi Cavagna, and sprinter Bryan Coquard, had designs on a serious challenge. Les bleus were 8th from last to get going, and the men would set the third fastest time of the day at the handover.

The men were bettered by the world beating women, who covered the course for a total time of 54'23, and one which few teams, if any seemed likely to beat.

The British squad were handicapped from the start, as Josh Charlton was only planned to complete a couple of kilometres of the 20, before getting into the team car. That left it to Ethan Vernon and Dan Bigham to finish the job as a pair, though they performed admirably, and were just 20 seconds down when they handed over to Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Shackley and Elynor Backstedt.

Both parts of the German team set in strong, stealthy runs to give them a chance of a medal, but only the Swiss looked like they might challenge the French.

They managed to do even more than that. Specialists Stefan Kung and Stefan Bisseger, plus Mauro Schmid passed the proverbial baton to their team-mates with 18 seconds of lead to defend. Despite suffering a crash mid-way though their run, Marlen Reusser managed to resume, regroup and help deliver a second consecutive victory in this competition for Switzerland.

Germany finished in third place, 51 seconds adrift of the champions, while Great Britain had to settle for fourth spot, a further 12 seconds back.

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