December 9, 2007 (Hochfilzen, Austria) – Clean shooting by Halvard Hanevold and then Ole Einar Bjoerndalen lifted Norway to an easy win Sunday in the men’s World Cup biathlon relay win in Hochfilzen. Norway won the 4×7.5 km race by more than two minutes over Russia.

Norway rolled to victory in 1:18.31.3 with Russia timed in 1:20.56.7. Norway had six missed while the Russians missed a dozen shots.

Germany’s women had a tougher time winning their relay race. Kati Wilhelm shot clean in her final visit to the range while Sandrine Bailly of France missed three shots and the French dropped to fourth place. Despite 10 missed shots, Germany won by 19.3 seconds over Russia (also 10 penalties) with a time of 1:23.35.0; Sweden was one second back of Russia and the top four teams were 29 seconds apart in the 4×5 km competition.

North American men struggled. The U.S. men were 12th and Canada 13th in the 22-team field. In the women’s relay, neither the USA nor Canada raced.

Full results here.