Veronika Stepanova took the ROC home to relay gold ©Getty Images

The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) won 4x5 kilometres women's cross-country relay gold after a tremendous tussle with Germany which was only decided on the final lap.

The ROC quartet of Yulia Stupek, Natalia Nepryaeva, Tatiana Sorina and Veronika Stepanova won in 53min 41.0sec, with Stepanova seizing the race lead on the final leg.

The Germans took silver in 53:59.2 and bronze went to Sweden in 54:01.7.

Katharina Hennig had taken the Germans to the front of the field in the second leg, and it became a battle between them and the ROC at the front.

"I did not expect that Germany would be there together with us, so I wanted to create a better situation for Veronika" ROC third-leg skier Sorina said.

"I managed to create a gap between the Swedes and the Norwegians, so I was sure that Veronika would be able to do her best and earn gold." 

The ROC celebrated 4x5km relay victory after a back-and-forth duel with the German team ©Getty Images
The ROC celebrated 4x5km relay victory after a back-and-forth duel with the German team ©Getty Images

When Victoria Carl handed to Sofie Krehl for the final leg, the Germans were still marginally in front, but Stepanova pulled away for the ROC to establish a final advantage of 18.2 seconds to make sure of the gold medal.

At 21 years and 39 days, Stepanova was the second-youngest athlete to win gold in the history of the event. 

"I was warming up and I was already calculating that the first leg would be ordinary and then we would have to solve the problem," Stepanova said. 

"We decided to follow the coach's plan and everything worked out."