Strand and Alexandersson showed the way when Sweden won another gold at the World Cup

It was clearly the girls who fared best when Sweden started the WC mentoring course with a win in the relay.

Lena Strand came out first and gained a 17-second lead before it was time to pass to Max-Peter Bijmer who lost slightly in his stretch before dispatching Gustav Bergmann on the penultimate stage.

However, Great Britain’s chase gained second by second and when it came time for Tove Alexanderson to take over, she did so in second place, just a few seconds behind the Briton.

– it was hard. I started well but lost a bit mid-stretch when I got a little negative, Bergman says.

“You never know”

But after a good road selection by Alexandersson at the start of the final half, Sweden were back in the lead and then there was no talk at all about it.

In the end, Sweden won by over a minute. Eternity of time in the relay race.

– You always go out to run as good a race as possible and you never know what’s going to happen, so you can never really relax, Alexandersson says and continues:

– I didn’t know the gap was too big so I just kept running.

Fourth in a row

The WC gold was Sweden’s fourth in a row in the sprint relay and for Alexandersson it was their tenth consecutive WC gold.

“Winning as a team with others feels so much fun, they did so well before me, so it’s inspiring to go out and do a good race yourself when my teammates fought for every metre,” she says.

CUT: Tove Alexandersson after WC gold