The Russian women’s national team won the ski relay at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Yulia Stupak, Natalia Nepryaeva, Tatiana Sorina, and Veronika Stepanova completed a distance of 4×5 kilometres in 53 minutes 41.0 seconds. The second was the German team (18.2 seconds behind) and the third came the Swedes (+20.7).
As specified, the first two stages of the team were classic style and the last one was free. With the victory in the relay, the Russian team at the Beijing Olympics surpassed its result in the number of gold medals shown at the previous Games in Pyeongchang.
In addition, Russian skiers Alexey Chervotkin, Alexander Bolshunov, Denis Spitsov, and Sergey Ustyugov won the 4×10 km relay at the Beijing Olympics and brought the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team the fourth gold medal. The second place was taken by the Norwegian national team (+1 minute 7.2 seconds). France took third place (+1 minute 16.4 seconds).
It is noted that the gold in the relay was the first for Russian skiers in 42 years. The previous time, Russian athletes won the relay race at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid (USA).
Currently, the Russians have surpassed the result of the Pyeongchang Olympics in gold medals. In 2018, Russian athletes won two gold, six silver, and nine bronze medals and took 13th place in the medal standings.
Thus, there are now 18 medals in the piggy bank of the team of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), under the flag of which Russian athletes perform: four gold, six silver, and eight bronze.
