World Cup: Sweden wins Sprint Relay in close finish
Posted on | May 24, 2017 | Category: Arena, News

Photo: Matias Salonen
A very close race on last leg between Helena Jansson, Sweden and Maja Alm, Denmark ended with a 1-second win for Jansson, and with Alm disqualified through mispunching. Second place went to Switzerland, 13 seconds down and third to Great Britain, 1 minute further down.
Sweden was at the front almost throughout in the varied urban and parkland terrain in the centre of Turku in Finland. They got a very good start on first leg through Karolin Ohlsson who came in together with Sabine Hauswirth SUI, with Cat Taylor GBR 2 seconds behind. Several other teams were in close contention at this stage. On second leg, Emil Svensk kept Sweden in the lead, by 2 seconds over Switzerland and 23 seconds over Great Britain and Denmark 2. Denmark’s first team was 6th, 32 seconds down at this point.
Third leg saw Jonas Leandersson SWE and Martin Hubmann SUI in a close tussle that ended with Sweden again 2 seconds ahead. Denmark with Tue Lassen moved up to third, 15 seconds down, and Great Britain was fourth, a further 20 seconds behind. Maja Alm set out on the last leg at high speed as usual and caught up the leaders, with Elena Roos SUI then dropping just off the pace. It was Sweden enjoying the big celebrations at the end of a highly impressive overall performance.
Leading results (provisional)
- Sweden (Karolin Ohlsson, Emil Svensk, Jonas Leandersson, Helena Jansson)
- Switzerland (Sabine Hauswirth, Florian Howald, Martin Hubmann, Elena Roos) + 0.13
- Great Britain (Cat Taylor, Peter Hodkinson, Ralph Street, Tessa Strain) + 1.13
- Russia + 1.19
- Finland 2 + 1.39
- Norway + 2.25