After dominating events in Tartu across a number of individual races, the Russian athletes joined forces to secure the Team relay title.

In a fast and frenetic race, eight teams competed for their nation.

The Russian outfit of Tatiana Charochkina, Maxim Kuzmin, Olga Parfinenko and Pavel Andreev battled hard to see off the threat of the Norwegian side to secure the relay gold in 2:22:13.

With Andreev on the final leg for Russia they were always going to finish strongly and it wasn’t until the final 200m that he caught and passed Oyvind Bjerkseth of Norway.

Bjerkseth’s teammates; Elisabeth Sveum, Kristian Monsen and Borghild Løvset had led for much of the race and set Bjerkseth up for victory before Andreev pipped him at the death.

A reflective Bjerkseth said after the race: “It was good to ski but I could not keep the lead. Pavel was just faster than me.”

The Czech team of Sarka Grabmullerova, Martin Husek, Helena Erbenova and Pavel Jindra completed the podium in third place.

The Estonians of Sandra Schmidt, Indrek Teppo, Eveli Saue and Sander Linnus finished 4th.

For a full list of results and timings from the team relay event, click here.