The team of Alexander Os, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, Emil Hegle Svendsen and Tarjei Boe missed a total of seven targets and was forced into a penalty lap but still finished well ahead of the field in 1 hour, 29 minutes, 38.2 seconds.

Austria had four shooting errors and avoided penalties to take second, 53.1 seconds behind the winners.

France had nine misses and two penalty laps and was 3:28.8 back in third.

Helena Ekholm of Sweden missed just one target to beat World Cup leader Kaisa Makarainen of Finland in the women’s 10K pursuit.

Ekholm finished in 35 minutes, 17.8 seconds and edged Makarainen, who made two mistakes, by 32.0 seconds.

Darya Domracheva of Belarus missed three targets and was 46.3 seconds back in third.

Makarainen leads the overall standings with 252 points ahead of Ekholm with 236. Anna Carin Zidek of Sweden is third with 204.

The biathlon World Cup continues in Pokljuka, Slovenia from Dec. 16-19.