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Antoine Cyr and Graham Ritchie put on a solid performance in the classic cross-country skiing team sprint on Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics.

The two Canadians finished 5th ahead of world powers, and 22.31 seconds behind the favorites and winners Johannes Hosflot Klaebo and Erik Valnes (19 min 22 sec 99).

The silver medal went to the Finns and the bronze to the Russians.

Klaebo had already won gold in the freestyle individual sprint, silver in the relay (4×10 km) and bronze in the 15 kilometer (classic style). For his part, Russian Alexander Bolshunov, associated with Alexander Terentev, won his fourth medal after gold in skiathlon and relay, and silver in the 15 km classic. They will have the opportunity to complete their collection on Saturday in the 50 km freestyle, mass start.

Cyr and Ritchie had managed to go straight to the final stage by finishing fourth in their semi-final, only 1.5 seconds behind seven-time Olympic medalist Klaebo and his teammate.

However, the Canadian duo could not earn their ticket to the women’s final.

Only the first four teams in each semi-final advanced, in addition to the two fastest times overall.

Katherine Stewart-Jones and Dahria Beatty finished sixth in the first wave and therefore hoped to qualify on their time, but the second wave was faster so it was not enough to beat France and Poland who beat them by about 25 seconds.

It was the Germans Katharina Hennig and Victoria Carl who were finally crowned Olympic champions.

The Hennig-Carl pair, already a member of the silver medal quartet in the 4 x 5 km relay on Saturday, won at the finish line ahead of the big Swedish favorites Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist who had signed the double in the individual sprint.

The Russians Natalia Nepryaeva and Yulia Stupak, title holders in the relay, complete the podium. This is the eighth medal in the discipline of the Russian Olympic Committee, Russia being officially excluded for institutional doping.

In this team format, each of the cross-country skiers completes a circuit of one and a half kilometers before passing the baton to her teammate.

The final was brought forward due to the cold weather in Zhangjiakou: -20 degrees Celsius was expected at the original time, nearly two hours later.