Norway takes men's, women's World Cup relay races

Norway takes men's, women's World Cup relay races

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 5:10 p.m. ET

NOVE MESTO, Czech Republic (AP) Norway proved unbeatable on Sunday, winning both the men's and women's cross-country World Cup relay races.

Martin Johnsrud Sundby, the leader of the individual overall World Cup standings, built a decisive lead in his second leg for the favored Norwegians to win the 4x7.5-kilometer competition in 1 hour, 8 minutes, 29.0 seconds.

Sjur Roethe, Mathias Rundgreen and Finn Haagen Krogh also skied for Norway to beat the Russian team of Evgeniy Belov, Alexander Legkov, Alexey Chervotkin and Sergey Ustiugov by 6.0 seconds

Italy finished third, 54.3 seconds back.

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Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen anchored the dominant Norway team to a comfortable victory in the women's relay.

The team also included Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg, Heidi Weng and Therese Johaug.

Oestberg pulled away from the rest of the field in the first leg to give the Norwegians a lead of close to half a minute to win the 4x5-kilometer race in 50 minutes, 17.2 seconds.

''It's really nice to win with the team,'' said Johaug.

The American team of Sophie Caldwell, Sadie Bjornsen, Elizabeth Stephen and Jessica Diggins finished second, 42.1 seconds behind for the best result for the U.S. in the team competition after two third-place finishes in 2012 and 2015.

Finland was third, 55.9 seconds back.

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