Marta García and Íñigo Martínez de Albornoz reach the podium at the European Ski Mountaineering Championships

The Spanish skiers Marta García Farrés and Íñigo Martínez de Albornoz took fourth place this Thursday in the mixed mountain ski relay event during the European Championship, which is being held in the resort of Shahdagh (Azerbaijan).

This second day of the ‘skimo’ European Championship was sunny, unlike the previous day, and provided a senior mixed relay final where a compact group of teams remained united until the first transition, where Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Poland were already leading.

The fight for the leading positions continued during the first three laps, but the Swiss duo gradually took control of the race. Marianne Fatton and Thomas Bussard then set a strong and constant pace, creating a gap that the other teams could not mitigate.

In the last lap, Bussard maintained that comfortable advantage, which allowed the Swiss couple to cross the finish line in 35:55.0 and secure another gold medal for their country in this European Championship, since Fatton herself had won the women’s sprint final the day before.

Behind the Swiss, the Italians Alba De Silvestro and Michele Boscacci ran a solid race to finish second with a time of 36:48.9, while the German duo of Tatjana Paller and Finn Hösch completed the podium with a time of 37:12.0.

Behind the Germans, García Farrés and Martínez de Albornoz finished in fourth position with their time of 39:18.0 and were followed by the Polish duo of Iwona Januszyk and Jan Elantkowski, who secured that fifth place with a time of 40:35.4.