Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Johannes Thingnes Bø, Tarje Bø and Emil Hegle Svendsen won the men's 4x7.5 kilometres event in a time of 1 hour 17:05 min after using 12 spare rounds.

The Russian team of Alexey Volkov, Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Shipulin and Evgeniy Garanichev were second, 14.6 sec back with six spares, while third went to Austria, with one penalty and seven spares.

Their team, which featured Sven Grossegger, Julian Ebberhard, Simon Eder and Dominik Landertinger, came home 35.8 adrift of the winners.

Windy conditions in Ruhpolding made shooting trickier and Norway's success was largely down to Tarje Bø, with the Vancouver 2010 relay Olympic gold medallist enjoying a spectacular leg.

"Ole Einar told the wax guys his skis were not so great so they did something for mine and they were absolutely super," he said.

Bjørndalen added: "It is always great to do a relay here and of course, always great to win.

"After being sick, my shape is good right now, but the shooting is not so good, so I need to work on that."

After two relays this season, Norway and Russia now share the lead in the overall standings with 114 points.

Today's result was a role reversal from the opening contest at the World Cup meeting in Hochfilzen in Austria, which was won by the Russians ahead of Norway in second.

France are third overall with 91 points to their name.

The World Cup continues in Ruhpolding tomorrow with men's and women's mass start races.