Relay

It was very exciting last competition day in these Euroepan championships here in Ventspils. Extremely fast and also tricky courses made it very interesting, as even after the spectator's control there were big changes in the placings of the teams.

In the women's relay Sarah Rollins (GBR) made great race finishing in the first position after the first leg, there were also Spain in the 5th position after the first leg, that promised some surprises also in the rest of the race. However, the final results showed that stongest today were the Swedish girls, all of them making mistake to the second last control, still winning this relay 12 seconds ahead of Russia. In the spectator's control it was still Minna Kauppi (FIN) in the 2nd position, but mistake at the end of the course let Tatiana Ryabkina to pass her. So it was only bronze for Finland.

Also men made a lot of mistakes, and on the first leg Peter Oberg form the first Swedish team came out of the forest only in the 25th position, more than 8 minutes behind the second Swedish team, where Erik Ohlund made fantastic run finishing almost a mnute ahead of Dmitriy Tsvetkov (RUS) who finished the second in the first leg. Andrey Khramov made also good second leg for Russia, finishing already in the first position. He finished 1minute ahead of Matthias Merz (SUI), although in the spectator's control he was still together with Matthias. Valentin Novikov proved that Russia is the best men's team, as even after the mistake to the first control he could again catch and pass Daniel Hubmann (SUI) and finish 15 seconds ahead of him. It was quite clear for the first two teams, but it was really great battle for the bronze. Mats Haldin form Finland managed to pass the gold medallist of yesterday's middle distance Thierry Gueorgiou in the last part of the course and secured the 3rd place for Finland with really fast finish sprint, leaving France in the 4th and Czech Rebublic in the 5th position just some seconds behind.

• Offical results of the relay

Medal table after the all distances

Flag	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
	Russia	2	2	1	5
	Sweden	2	-	3	5
	Norway	2	-	-	2
	Finland	1	2	4	7
	France	1	-	-	1
	Switzerland	-	3	-	3
	Latvia	-	1	-	1

The championships now are over. There were interesting distances, some surprises and now we have to wait two more years for the next European championships, that will take place in Bulgaria in 2010.