The quartet of Juliya Dzhyma, Natalya Burdyga, Valj Semerenko and Iryna Varvynets struggled early on before they recovered, largely thanks to Varnyets' last leg, to take gold in a time of 1 hour 09min 58.5sec.

Germany finished 18.6 seconds adrift of the Ukraine as they clinched silver, while France claimed bronze.

On the second standing, Ukraine found themselves in the penalty loop and, despite still being in the leading group, they were over a minute behind leaders Germany and Poland.

The Polish team then took the advantage on the third leg before the majority of the teams all reassembled for the last prone shooting stage, meaning the podium battle was well and truly on once again.

After that stage, the German and Ukranian teams had a seven second advantage over France and Poland and the last shooting stage was decisive in the destination of the medals.

Russia dominated the majority of the men's race to cap off an excellent IBU Open European Championships in Otepää, Estonia ©IBU



But Varnyets took control of the race by shooting clean before she powered to the finish to seal gold for her nation.

In the men's race, Russia's men capped off a fruitful last few days with a dominant victory in the 4x7.5 relay.

The Russian team, made up of Alexey Volkov, Anton Babikov, Aleksandr Pechenkin and Alexey Slepov led for the majority of the contest as they finished 14.2 seconds ahead of Ukraine, who could not quite match the achievements of the women.

Norway were third while Belarus narrowly missed out on a medal as they came fourth.

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