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| - Norway claimed their first medal of the world ski championships when they beat Sweden in an all-Scandinavian final in the mixed-sex team parallel event on Wednesday. The quartet of Thea Louise Stjernesund, Sebastian Foss-Solevaag, Kristina Riis-Johannessen and Fabian Wilkens Solheim beat the Swedes 3-1 in four head-to-head races down the Rumerlo piste in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Only Sara Hector won for the Swedish team which also included Estelle Alphand, Kristoffer Jakobsen and Matthias Roenngren. There was drama in the final as Foss-Solevaag's run against Jakobsen was re-run. The Norwegian was initially marked down as a DNF (did not finish) after pulling up a third of the way down the hill. But he claimed he had been impeded by his Swedish rival, organisers agreed and Foss-Solevaag went on to win the hastily reset face-off. "Jakobsen went on my inside ski and I saw it in my vision that, OK, he's going there, like falling in, and I'm not risking my health and my legs for this so then I stopped right away," Foss-Solevaag said. "I went to (FIS race director) Markus Waldner and he totally agreed with me so there was actually no discussion, so we had to go up and do it one more time." Foss-Solevaag added: "The team event is always nice. You don't want to disappoint the rest of the team. If it's an individual event, it's on you. "Now it smells of champagne, sorry prosecco! It's a nice smell!" Norway beat Japan, the United States and favourites Switzerland in their march to the final, while the Swedish foursome had seen off Slovenia, Austria and Germany. The Germans claimed bronze in a tense tie-break against the Swiss title holders led by two-time world combined gold medallist Wendy Holdener. lp/nr
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