Competition was held over 38.4 kilometres starting and finishing in Emmen with two laps of a flat 19.2km used in part for yesterday's individual time trials.

Italy's male trio of Edoardo Affini, Matteo Sobrero and Mattia Cattaneo led at the halfway stage.

Sobrero was second to finish in 20min 36.96sec, giving Italy a lead of more than 20sec over France's Bruno Armirail, Rémi Cavagna and Benjamin Thomas, for whom the latter was second in 20:57.39.

However, Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Cédrine Kerbaol and Juliette Labous hauled back the deficit for France and ensured victory in 44:23.72, finishing just under five seconds clear of Italy.

Elena Cecchini, Vittoria Guazzini and Soraya Paladin gave Italy a time of 44:27.93.

Germany's Miguel Heidemann, Jannik Steimle, Maximilian Walscheid, Lisa Klein, Franziska Koch and Mieke Kröger placed third in 44:46.51.

Switzerland's team included women's individual time trial champion Marlen Reusser, but the world champions were without Stefan Küng after his heavy crash yesterday.

They had to settle for sixth in 45:20.66.

Italy won the junior mixed team relay, open to athletes born in 2005 and 2006.

Andrea Bessega, Luca Giaimi, Andrea Montagner, Eleonora La Bella, Alice Toniolli and Federica Venturelli triumphed in 48:14.15, beating Germany by around 26 seconds and France by 35.

Road races are due to start tomorrow at the UEC Road European Championships in the under-23 category, covering 134.9km in the men's event and 106.4km in the women's.