Cross-Country Skiing 2022/Women's relay

Women's relay
General information
Sport	Cross-Country Skiing 2022
Date	12 February 2022
Competitors	18 teams
Venue	Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Skiing Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Norway
Silver	Sweden
Bronze	Olympic Athletes from Russia
Medalists
	ROC
	Germany
	Sweden

The women's relay of Cross-Country Skiing 2022 during the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 12 February 2022 in the Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Skiing Centre. With 18 teams competing, the event was won by the team from ROC, with Germany taking the silver medal and Sweden taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of each athlete conducting two rounds of 2.5 kilometres, with the first two athletes of each team conducting their laps in the classic technique, and the last two athletes using the free technique. The team with the fastest time after 4x5 kilometres is the winner.

Preview

Eighteen teams qualified for the event with Norway as the big favorite for the title with Therese Johaug as two-time Olympic champion in 2022 alone, though Sweden had also shown to be a dominant force in the sprint event. ROC and Finland had also won medals in any of the individual events, while athletes from the United States and Germany also having performed very well in the recent few days.

Samanta Krampe was the youngest competitor in the field aged 18, and was three months younger than Karolina Kukuczka, with seven other athletes born after the turn of the century, with all nine skiers making their Olympic debuts in Beijing. On the other end of the scale, Masako Ishida was the most experience in the field, making her fifth Olympic appearance at the age of 41, as she was almost seven years older than Valentyna Kaminska, who made her third Olympic appearance. Maryna Antsybor, who was also from 1987 and only four days older than Laurien van der Graaff, made her fourth edition of the Olympic Games, just like Krista Parmakoski. Other than Kaminska and Van der Graaff, five others made their third Olympic appearance, with forty-three making their Olympic debuts.

Results

The team representing the ROC won the event for the first time since 2006, though in that edition the team represented Russia. Natalia Nepryaeva and Yulia Stupak won their third Olympic medals, after they also won a bronze medal in the previous edition of the women's relay together and after they picked up individual medals in the skiathlon in 2022 and the sprint event in 2018, respectively. Their team mates Tatiana Sorina and Veronika Stepanova picked up their first Olympic medals at their debuts. The German team also had two debutantes in Beijing, with all four members winning their first Olympic medals after the team missed out on the relay medals in 2018. The bronze medalists from Sweden won a third Olympic medal in the women's relay in a row, after winning gold in 2014 and winning silver in 2018, though only Ebba Andersson remained from the 2018 edition. Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist won their second Olympic medals though, after being part of a Swedish clean sweep in the women's sprint event, while Frida Karlsson won her first Olympic medal. Finland barely missed out on the medals once again, after the team finished fourth in 2018, though the difference with the podium this time was less than a second, just edging out the 2018 champions from Norway. The United States finished on sixth place on over a minute, with Switzerland completing the top 7 on three minutes from the winners.

Result	Team	Time
	ROC	53:41.0
	Germany	53:59.2
	Sweden	54:01.7
4	Finland	54:02.2
5	Norway	54:09.8
6	United States	55:09.2
7	Switzerland	56:41.5
8	Italy	57:20.5
9	Canada	57:20.9
10	China	57:49.7
11	Japan	58:40.6
12	France	59:03.9
13	Czech Republic	59:32.6
14	Poland	1:00:21.5
15	Kazakhstan	1:01:15.4
16	Estonia	1:01:18.9
17	Latvia	1:01:20.6
18	Ukraine	LAP