Team Norway won the 4x5km cross-country skiing relay at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica, Slovenia. The Norwegians defended their championship title in Oberstdorf two years ago, forging victory at the end of the third post when their main rivals from Sweden fell more than 15 sec behind as Frida Karlsson could not keep up with the pace of Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg and collapsed after passing the baton. Before this happened, the exhausted Frida Karlsson was also overtaken by the German team.
In the end, the Norwegian team of Tiril Udnes Weng, Astrid Oeyre Slind, Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg, and Anne Kjersti Kalva finished undisturbed first with a time of 50 minutes and 33.3 sec. The silver medal went to the German team of Laura Gimmler, Katharina Hennig, Pia Fink and Victoria Carl, who won distinction in this discipline for the first time in 14 years. The German team was 20.5 sec behind the winners.
The Swedish women, who were represented by Emma Ribom, Ebba Andersson, Frida Karlsson and Maja Dahlqvist, remained third at 28.7 sec, with Maja Dahlqvist overtaking Finland’s Krista Parmakoski in a final sprint.
More than a minute and a half out of first place finished the USA team, which placed fifth, and with a lag of 2:30 min, sixth place went to the relay of France.
The team race was the women’s penultimate event at the world championships, with only Saturday’s 30km classic mass start remaining. For the men, the 4x10km team race is coming up on Friday.
