The team of Semen Suchilov, Sergey Korastylev, Olga Shesterikova and Larisa Kuklina were first to complete the course at the Alatau Cross-Country Skiing & Biathlon Complex in a time of 1 hour 14min 37.8sec.

Kazakhstan claimed silver, despite dominating the early part of the race, in 1:15:08.4.

The hosts got off to an emphatic start and led by 33.5 seconds after the first exchange.

Galina Vishnevskaya, Darya Ussanova, Vassiliy Podkorytov and Anton Pantov then extended their lead over the course of the second exchange, arriving at the checkpoint 1:26.1 in front of Russia.

The Russians then began to close the gap and cruised through the snow to narrow the deficit to just 0.14 at the third exchange.

They went on to not only surpass the hosts but finish 30 seconds in front of them to take gold.

Russia's Suchilov now has four medals in Almaty after he won bronze in the men’s 20km individual event, a second bronze in the 12.5km race and gold in the men’s 10km sprint.

Ukraine's Nadiia Bielkina, Yana Bondar, Maksym Ivko and Artem Tyshchenko rounded out the podium after they took third in 1:17:10.4.