Cyclo-cross world championships, Italy immediately to medal
Italy is off on the right foot at the 2026 Cyclo-cross World Championships, which began in Hulst, Netherlands. In fact, the mixed relay team gave an immediate silver medal, with Filippo Grigolini, Stefano Viezzi, Sara Casasola, Elisa Ferri, Giorgia Pellizotti and Filippo Fontana doing well to take the second step of the podium. The Azzurri were also in the lead several times, yielding only when the host Holland, as well as the eve favorite, raised the level with its athletes in the finale. Italy still managed to finish ahead of another high-level team, Belgium.
“This is Italian cycling“s first medal in 2026 and it came immediately, at the World Cyclo-cross Championships, right in the d’debut race– commented, with great satisfaction, Cordiano Dagnoni, president of Federciclismo -. To be back on the world podium a year later, and to do it with a different lineup, is an important signal: it confirms the overall quality of our movement and the value of the work that the coach and all the staff are carrying out. Congratulations to these guys and to the whole group”.
Entusiastic also technical commissioner Daniele Pontoni: “Today’s is the 30th medal won during my management: an achievement that makes us proud even more confident of the work done so far. For a moment we even cherished the idea of gold, but we remain with a smile and above all with the knowledge that our athletes are now firmly at world level, inside the elite. We hold on to this silver, which came at the end of an excellent race, and look forward to Saturday and Sunday” trials.
“As always, kudos goes to all the staff: from the mechanics to the masseurs, from the doctor to the entire technical and management structure, which allowed us to be here and work in the best conditions. We are satisfied with what we have done so far, but we certainly do not have a full belly: there is still a lot to do” added the coach.
For Italy, this is the second consecutive silver in the mixed relay: last year, in Lievin (France), the Azzurri came within a whisker of the gold, snatched by a few seconds by Great Britain. Of that team, three athletes participated in this year’s mixed relay: Giorgia Pellizotti, Sara Casasola and Stefano Viezzi.
