Norway extend glorious relay run as Finland and Germany win long-awaited medals

The fight for second place also ended early as Finland’s Iivo Niskanen showed why he is one of the world’s best classic skiers with an intense first lap of the second leg that gave Finland a gap to the rest of the field. Despite struggling in his second lap, Niskanen could exchange to Perttu Hyvarinen with Finland in a comfortable second place after 20km – almost 40 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

“It was quite easily a huge gap there down to Sweden and France so I was a little bit surprised that it went that fast,” Niskanen said.

“After my first lap I was a little bit struggling all the time, because I pushed already all to the limit, so the second lap wasn’t that good, I was a struggling all the time. But I’m satisfied about my leg and we could have an exciting relay.”

Ristomatti Hakola had done his job of keeping Finland in the chasing group for the first leg. Hyvarinen handed over to 20-year-old junior champion Niko Anttola, who did not get the pressure get to him and brought Finland to their first world championship relay medal in 14 years.

“We have been on the final stretch with the medallists many times. It has been close fights throughout the years but today we were strong enough to take it and there was a huge gap to the bronze, so we are very happy. Happy that we made it as we planned,” Niskanen said.

Hakola was also happy to see the spell of places just outside of the podium put to bed for Finland, whose last medal in the event was at the world championships in Liberec, Czech Republic, in 2009.

“It was like a gold medal for us. We have waited for this for a long time,” he said.

Anttola, who won the 10km free at the FIS Junior World Ski Championships in Whistler, Canada, in February, was relieved to be able to add a first senior world championship medal to his collection, his teammates lifting him on their shoulders to celebrate him afterwards.

“It was an amazing feeling. I was really nervous before the start and just tried to keep my head cool and control the skiing. The gap was quite big so it was a good situation for me,” he said.