Liberec, Czech Republic  - Aino-Kaisa Saarinen won her third gold medal at the 2009 Nordic world champions on Thursday when she anchored Finland to back-to-back women's cross-country relay titles.

Saarinen made up an 8.2-second deficit on Norway at the final exchange to ensure victory in the 4x5-kilometres race in 54 minutes 24.3 seconds with Pirjo Muranen, Virpi Kuitunen and Riitta-Liisa Roponen.

Liberec, Czech Republic  - Norihito Kobayashi won a photo finish against Germany's Tino Edelmann to give Japan a surprise world title in the Nordic combined team event on Thursday.

Kobayashi led the mass start silver medallist Edelmann and strong Norwegian skier Magnus Moan into the home stretch and then just hung on to win the 4x5-kilometres cross country relay for the title.

Kobayashi, Yusuke Minato, Taihei Kato and Akito Watabe clocked 48 minutes 32.3 seconds for their first title since a 1993 and 1995 double. Japan also won Olympic gold

Liberec, Czech Republic  - Aino-Kaisa Saarinen won her third gold medal at the Nordic world champions on Thursday when she anchored Finland to back-to-back women's cross-country relay titles.

Saarinen made up an 8.2-second deficit on Norway at the final exchange to top the 4x5-kilometres race in 54 minutes 24.3 seconds with Pirjo Muranen, Virpi Kuitunen and Riitta-Liisa Roponen.

Germany won a dramatic three-team sprint for silver, with Sweden third and Norway knocked off the podium in fourth place after leading at the final exchange.

Liberec, Czech Republic - France led the way after ski-jumping in the world championship Nordic combined team event on Thursday in which the fancied United States met disaster and title holders Finland had to swallow a major handicap.

The first US jumper, normal hill bronze medallist Bill Demong, was disqualified as he forgot his bib. As a result, the team led by double world champion Todd Lodwick was out of contention in 12th and last place ahead of the afternoon 4x5-kilometres cross-country relay.

The US team trails France by 3 minutes 4 seconds into the pursuit race as the French won the jumping with 470.6 points. Jason Lamy Chappuis and Francois Braud sailed
127m each, Maxime Laheurte had 120.5m and Sebastien Lacroix 116.5m.

Liberec, Czech Republic  - Germany may have never won a gold in the team sprint, but just like in 2005 a men's silver felt like gold for the whole team.

At at home worlds 2005 in Oberstdorf and again over the past days in Liberec success in cross-country skiing seemed impossible due to a combination of bad luck and wrong waxing.

But all was forgotten when Axel Teichmann fought hard on the home stretch to beat Sami Jauhojaervi of Finland in the photo finish, with only Norway ahead.

Liberec, Czech Republic  - Ola Vigen Hattestad of Norway was unstoppable on the home stretch again as he won a second cross-country skiing world title in 24 hours, in the team sprint together with Johan Kjoelstad.

Hattestad passed Finland's Sami Jauhojaervi who also had to bow to German Axel Teichmann in a photo-finish as Norway won from Germany and Finland on the first partly sunny day of the championships.