Norway show class with biathlon relay gold

Norway's women's team bounced back from opening-round disappointment in perfect fashion by claiming their first win of the Biathlon World Cup season in the 4x6km relay in Hochfilzen, Austria.

The quartet of Karoline Offigstad Knotten, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Røiseland had finished eighth in the 2020/21 curtain-raiser in Kontiolahti, Finland, and found the going tough again early on.

Knotten was the only member of the team not to miss a target but finished the first leg in third place having seen her clean sweep matched by Germany's Maren Hammerschmidt, and Johanna Skottheim, who had claimed gold with Sweden last time out.

Tandrevold kept Norway in the mix halfway into the race while the Czech Republic's Markéta Davidová incredibly ate up a 30-second deficit to put her team in the lead.

But six-time world champion Eckhoff showed her class in the third leg to tag Røiseland with a lead of over 20 seconds in tow, and the latter duly came home in an overall time of 1 hour eight minutes and four seconds to seal the win.

Røiseland said: "It was a really good day for the Norwegian team today. The girls did a good job.

"It was really big [to get revenge after Kontiolahti]. We know we have a strong team and the last relay was not so good for us so we were really motivated for today."

France claimed their second successive 4x6km relay silver medal finish 24.5 seconds behind, while Sweden also notched back-to-back podium places, coming home 32.5 seconds off Norway's pace.

Sportsbeat 2020