France delivered a dominant performance in Jurmala, Latvia, claiming four medals across the two junior races.

Rolin leads French double in Junior Women’s race

In the Junior Women’s race, it was Maelis Rolin who took the tape, finishing ahead of fellow French athlete Amélie Piazza.

Rolin produced a consistent performance throughout the race before turning on the pace in the run. Starting the final discipline in 10th position after the bike, she moved through the field with the fastest run split of the day, clocking 16:58 for the 5km to secure the gold medal.

The victory marks Rolin’s first international podium, improving on her previous best result of 11th, which came in Carole in May.

Piazza matched Rolin’s strength on the run, recording the second-fastest split of the day in 17:03. Racing in a Junior Cup event for the first time, she immediately made her mark on the international stage with a silver medal on her debut.

Lia Depret completed the podium, finishing just three seconds behind Piazza. The French athlete’s third place meant that the top three finishers also recorded the three fastest run splits of the day.

For Depret, it was only her second race of the year, having last competed in Holten at the beginning of July, where she finished just outside the top 10.

Home favourite Beate Jonsone was hoping to add another medal in front of the Latvian crowd and came out of the water and bike in a strong position. Leading off the bike, Jonsone was unable to hold off the charging French athletes on the run and eventually crossed the line in fifth, 27 seconds behind Rolin.

Chabanel makes it back-to-back Junior Cup wins

There was another French one-two in the Junior Men’s race, with Gaspard Chabanel taking gold eight seconds ahead of teammate Gaetan Dedouche.

Chabanel made it back-to-back Junior Cup victories after also claiming the top step in Wels at the end of June. Starting the run in fifth position after T2, he produced a 14:22 split to move into the lead and secure another gold medal.

For Dedouche, the silver medal marks his first Junior Cup podium. Like Rolin, his previous race came in Carole, and he showed his strength across all three disciplines in Jurmala. A third-fastest swim combined with the second-fastest run of the day was enough to keep him clear of Germany’s Christian Ache, who finished 24 seconds behind the two French athletes.

Ache enjoyed success in Latvia last year but was unable to repeat his victory, instead settling for bronze. After difficult results in Kitzbühel and at the Sprint Championships, however, the German will be pleased to return to the podium.

Ache narrowly held off Benjamin Douglas in the battle for third, with the Belgian finishing just two seconds behind to take fourth.

With two golds, a silver and a bronze, France dominated the junior podiums in Jurmala, underlining the strength of the nation’s next generation on the international stage.

Full results can be found here.

Photo - Mareks Galinovskis / FotoManLV