Russians run away with gold medal in men's cross-country relay

Under the snow in Beijing on Sunday, the Russians emerged with the gold medal in a slow men's 4x10-kilometre cross-country relay.

Alexey Chervotkin gave the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) the lead in the first leg of the race and his three teammates to follow never relinquished it en route to victory.

"We tried to achieve it, and for several years we haven't been able to," Chervotkin said. "Today everything aligned. Everything was super. The weather seemed to be hard and there was snow but it was in our favour so everything was great."

The Russians' winning time of one hour 54 minutes 50.7 seconds was more than 20 minutes slower than Norway's gold-medal time four years ago at the Pyeongchang Olympics and nearly 30 behind the pace set by Sweden at Sochi 2014.

The snowy conditions made the ski tracks slow in Beijing, especially on the first two classic ski legs. Leaf-blowers were used to clear the snow out of the ski tracks.

The Norwegians scored silver in 1:55:57.9. France took bronze in 1:56:07.1, less than a minute ahead of fourth-place Sweden.

The ROC's margin of victory was enough that anchor skier Sergey Ustiugov was handed his country's Olympic flag and carried it across the finish.

A young Canadian squad featuring four Olympic rookies placed 11th.

Graham Ritchie, 23, led off in the first 10 kilometres, finishing nearly three minutes behind the leader. After the second classical technique leg raced by 23-year-old Antoine Cyr, Canada trailed by just over five minutes.

Olivier Léveillé, 20, and Remi Drolet, 21, skied the final 20 kilometres of freestyle, but couldn't make up any ground.

China, Slovenia and Estonia were all lapped and did not finish the race.