SkiMo-France's Harrop and Anselmet claim inaugural mixed relay gold

BORMIO, Italy, Feb 21 : France's world champions Emily Harrop and Thibault Anselmet won the inaugural Olympic ski mountaineering mixed relay title on Saturday after leading from the first lap, making up for the disappointment of not winning the individual sprint titles.

They took 26 minutes 57.44 seconds to traverse up and down the 1.41 km course. The pair won medals in their respective sprint events on Thursday, but Harrop had to settle for silver in the women’s and Anselmet bronze in the men’s. 

Switzerland's Marianne Fatton and Jon Kistler took the silver medal spot 11.86 seconds behind, with Spain's Ana Alonso Rodriguez and Oriol Cardona Coll in bronze position.

OUT FOR REVENGE

Harrop had an extra incentive to win her race after being beaten to gold by Fatton on Thursday. "It completely pushed me," she said, "I didn't want to let go of this second opportunity."

Once she moved ahead in the first lap, Harrop knew she had to "resist, resist, resist, stay clean on all my transitions."

Anselmet was also keen to improve on bronze and celebrated on the final lap before he had even crossed the finish line.

"I said in my head, it's okay, you can celebrate with the people at the top," he said of seeing the others behind him and taking a moment to soak it up with the cheering crowd at the top of the slope before making his descent to victory.

HOW IT WORKS

It was all or nothing as one of the last Winter Games events saw all 12 teams start at the same time for a final SkiMo race. 

With one team per nation, made up of one woman and one man, each athlete had two laps each to battle it out with the other teams - and build on their counterpart's position. 

The women first took to the starting line to ascend 135 metres in total and descend the