Evgenia Sukhoruchenkova and Raphael Aurelien claimed victory in the penultimate European race of the season.

In a stunning finale to the Elite Women’s race, only four seconds separated the podium positions.

Sukhoruchenkova (RUS) finished in 1:03:12, just edging out Kathrin Muller (GER) to claim the gold medal with the German having to settle for silver in a time of 1:03:13.

Yuliya Yelistratova was not far behind the top two, finishing in third in 1:03:16.

In the Elite Men’s race, Aurelien Raphael went one better than his performance in 2011 with a comprehensive and dominant victory.

Last year’s runner up finished in 53:43 to record his second European International victory of the year.

The Frenchman denied the crowd a home winner but there was plenty to cheer about for the Italians, as Alessandro Fabian and Luca Facchinetti finished in second and third place respectively.

Both results were significant for the Italian athletes. For Fabian, this result marked his first European International podium finish in Elite competition and Facchinetti’s result was his first career podium at this level.

Picture: Evgenia Sukhoruchenkova breaks the tape to win the Mondello Sprint just a second ahead of Kathrin Muller.