In the men's event, Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, Johannes Dale, Tarjei Bø and Johannes Thingnes Bø used just five spare rounds en route to success in a time of 1 hour 10min 25.3sec.

Victory secures Norway the IBU World Cup title for men's relay, finishing on 348 points from the six events ahead of France with 302 and Germany with 264.

"(Winning) meant a lot," Johannes Thingnes Bø, who used just 10 shots to close his 10 targets, said.

"We wanted to win the relay cup so this was our big aim today.

"My team put me in a good position but here in Nové Město you never know with the wind so I tried to keep the distance until my last shoot.

"Then when I did not use extra shots, I could take time to relax on the last loop."

Ukraine's Artem Pryma, Sergii Semenov, Ruslan Tkalenko and Dmytro Pidruchnyi were 38.2 seconds behind with five spares in second place.

The bronze medals went to Sweden's Sebastian Samuelsson, Jesper Nelin, Peppe Femling and Martin Ponsiluoma, who were 43.3 seconds back with one penalty and eight spares.

Earlier today in the women's 4x6km relay, the Norwegian team made it a perfect six wins out of six this season.

The quartet of Karoline Offigstad Knotten, Ida Lien, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold and Tiril Eckhoff triumphed with eight spares in 1:09:14.8.

With regular anchor Marte Olsbu Røiseland at home, Norway inserted Lien into their line-up today. 

The 22-year-old found herself on top of the podium in her first-ever IBU World Cup start.

"This is a day that I will never forget," Lien said.

France's Julia Simon, Justine Braisaz, Chloé Chevalier and Anaïs Bescond finished second, 28.7 seconds behind with one penalty and 10 spares.

Rounding off the podium were Germany's Karolin Horchler, Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Preuß and Denise Herrmann, 57 seconds back with one penalty and 14 spares.

The event in Nové Město na Moravě has been closed to the public because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Action is due to conclude tomorrow, with the men's 15km and women's 12.5km mass start competitions.