"I really felt before today that I didn't want to be the only one coming home with a medal. I really wanted to share it with someone else and now I got to ski over the finish line and deliver a gold for us and this is really a team effort. It's so incredible," said Elvira, who is competing in her first Olympics.

The silver went to the Russian Olympic Committee team consisting of Irina Kazakevich, Kristina Reztsova, Svetlana Mironova and Uliana Nigmatullina, with one penalty and seven spares, 12 seconds behind Sweden.

Kristina and Uliana claimed their second medals of these Games after taking bronze earlier in the mixed relay.

"It is a very important medal for us because each of us truly did the maximum over the whole season, over the whole year. It was a very long and hard journey to get to this point so now there is this calmness in my soul because I can say that it was not all in vain," Kristina noted.

The German squad of Vanessa Voigt, Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Preuss and Denise Herrmann took the bronze 37.4 seconds behind.

The bronze medal was the second biathlon medal in Beijing for Denise Herrmann, who won the 15km individual.

"The other three ladies did a good job. I had a good position, close to the medals. Maybe it was a good position because I was not in the top lead and I could focus on myself and my targets, taking it step by step," said Herrmann, who started in the fourth position and moved up to third by the finish.

Vanessa Voigt, Vanessa Hinz and Franziska Preuss won the first Olympic medals of their careers.

"Relay always has its magic. We really wanted this medal. We all gave our best, perhaps a little bit more. It doesn't matter which colour, we have a medal and we're super happy as a team," Hinz said.

China finished 12th, 5:07.6 after the winner.