February 19, 2014 (Krasnaya Polyana, Russia) – Team Norway continued to flex its Nordic muscles on Wednesday, winning another gold medal, this time in the Biathlon Mixed Relay that saw the women complete 2x6km and the men storm through 2×7.5km legs as great conditions returned to the Sochi venue.

The Norwegians finished in a time of 1:09:17, a comfortable 32.6s ahead of the Czech Republic who won the silver, and 58.2s ahead of bronze medal winners, Italy as they claimed their first biathlon medal since 1998. The win was the 13th Olympic medal for Norway’s “King of Biathlon”, Ole Einar Björndalen, making him most decorated Winter Olympian ever.

Team USA’s Susan Dunklee, Hannah Dreissigacker, Time Burke, and Lowell Bailey made the top 10 finishing ninth with one penalty and 13 spare rounds while Team Canada’s Megan Imrie, Rosanna Crawford, Brendan Green, and Scott Perras crossed the finishline in 12th using 8 spare rounds.

Norway used two spare rounds, both courtesy of the squad’s first skier, Tora Berger, on her final round of shooting. After that, it was clear sailing, as Tiril Eckhoff, Bjoerndalen, and anchor Emil Svendsen all shot clean. The Czech team amassed a total of seven spare rounds and prevailed for the silver, while the Italians use six spare rounds.

“I felt really good about the skiing, I lost a few paces on the range, but I was able to pick people off going up the hill and it felt great,” said Dunklee who led the US team with a strong opening leg in 4th place.

Commenting on the mixed relay format, Dunklee said, “It’s really special to be able to compete as a mixed team. We train together with the guys all summer, but it’s special to be able to race together because we really are one team.”

It was Dreissigacker’s first mixed relay. “I had a penalty loop, which is not good in a relay because you get three extra spare rounds. You should be able to hit all the targets with those. I’m not exactly sure what happened. I started in such a good spot. It was such an amazing experience to tag off in fourth. I’m really grateful to my teammate Susan for putting me in that position.”

Canada’s Crawford commented, “It was lots of fun but I’d say there’s almost more pressure in a race like this. There are so many variables in just having one person have a good race and now you’re trying to have four people have a good race. You just sort of have to focus on yourself and then see what the others can do too. I’m happy I got to take off after Brendan. That was cool.”

Coming off back-to-back nights of racing, Burke felt the strongest he has here in Sochi. “My skiing felt the best today that I’ve felt here,” he said. “It was nice to feel like myself again skiing. Yesterday was one of the hardest races that I have ever done. It felt nice tonight because the conditions were so much different and better than yesterday.”

“It’s a tough event, we were definitely medal contenders,” said Bailey who anchored the team to its ninth place finish. “You have to go out there and be almost perfect, and we weren’t today. Our whole team was ready to go. Susan had a great lead off leg; she was hanging with the best in the world and out-skiing everyone. All of us did our best and we put it all out there.”

For Canada’s Green it was special in more ways than one.

“It was nice to wake up today to more or less clear skies and good conditions so that was a nice treat to not have to slog through deep snow and low viability. I don’t think this result was representative of our full potential by any means. We got off to a little bit of a rough start and we did make up a bit of ground throughout the race. We’re definitely capable of more, for sure.

“Taking the hand off from Rossana… that’s definitely special. I don’t think there’s too many people that can say they’ve done a race with their significant other. That’s pretty neat for us, for sure. Something that I’ll remember. I feel honoured to be a part of such a great team. It’s been an amazing two weeks. I’m really proud of everyone, it’s been great.”

Canada’s anchor Scott Perras commented as well saying, “Being able to compete against Björndalen was great… he’s always pushing the sport which in turn pushes us. I think we as a tea, can do better, we are the team that can be as strong as the best ones here, unfortunately we were not there today, because of some difficulties.”

“But I think it was what some of us needed, especially myself, just to get that one more experience in the front of the relay. My shooting was almost there, nine out of ten without the spares…so it definitely boosted my confidence,” added Perras

Berger recovered from two missed targets to tag Björndalen ahead of Italy and the “King” wasted no time putting Norway into an attenable position with clean fast shooting and skiing as he handed Svendsen a 40+ second margin over Ondrej Moravec for the final leg.

“I was better focused today than yesterday. It was working and was easy. I was very nervous before the race, because a relay is for the team and Norway. I was much more nervous than in any of the other races this week,” Björndalen told Biathlonworld.com.

It was an emotional day for the Norwegian team summed up by Svendsen to Biathlonworld.com, “This is something remarkable. Our whole team owes him a big thank you, because so many things in our system are a result of his success. Things that we take for granted. It is an honor to be on the team with him.”

Results here.