Photo finishes were required in the races with Sweden’s Stina Nilsson pleasing a home crowd as she was judged to have edged Norwegian Maiken Caspersen Falla on the line.

In the men’s sprint, Italian skier Federico Pellegrino nipped ahead of Norway’s Emil Iversen after battling down the home straight.

Nilsson and Falla have been the main sprint stars so far this season in the World Cup, with the 10 races before today seeing the Swede win four and her rival top the podium five times.

However, today Nilsson, spurred on by home support, levelled proceedings as she got round the course in 3min 0.24sec, just 0.01 in front of Falla.

“I really didn’t know if I had won at the finish,” Nilsson said afterwards.

“I had hoped, but didn’t want to react until it was official.

“It was so great to win her in Sweden with the crowd.”

Overall World Cup leader Heidi Weng of Norway was a further 1.88 back in third.

This helped the 25-year-old push her advantage in the standings by 10 points, with Weng now 289 in front of Finland’s Krista Parmakoski, who finished fourth today.

Pellegrino’s victory was his first sprint success for a year as he clocked a time of 2:45.77.

It was a tense finish, but the Italian was 0.6 ahead of Iversen.

“I was behind coming into the stadium and then carried my speed well into the final curve and had a wide turn and a free lane and fight for the lead,” Pellegrino said.

“I knew it was going to be close with Emil, but I really wanted this win for myself and the team after sitting out of last weekend’s relay event.”

Norway’s Sindre Bjørnestad Skar came third 0.47 behind the leaders as he was also involved in a photo finish with Swedish skier Oskar Svensson, who was beaten by 0.03.

Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov missed the chance to make a large cut into the overall World Cup lead of Norwegian Martin Johnsrud Sundby.

He only scored 20 points after finished 13^th, meaning Sundby is still 237 ahead.

Tomorrow, the men have a 30km race while the women are set to tackle a 15km course.