Norway's ecstatic Marit Bjoergen said Thursday that claiming her third gold medal of the Winter Olympics in the women's 4x5km cross-country relay was beyond her wildest dreams.
The 29-year-old has enjoyed a stellar Games and anchored the Norwegian team to cross the line at Whistler Olympic Park in 55min 19.5sec, with Germany 24.6secs behind in second and Finland at 30.4secs in third.
"I didn't dream I would get one gold medal (before the Games) and now I have three, so this has been wonderful for me," beamed Bjoergen, who jumped over the finish line waving a large Norwegian flag.
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"This was a great race, the other girls put in some great work before me," she added.
"On the third leg, Kristin Stoermer opened a gap of something like 15 seconds. I knew that Germany and Finland were very strong, but I added five seconds to our lead on the first climb. I knew that this was going to be my day.
"It meant I was able to take the Norwegian flag at the end, I don't know why I jumped over the line, but I was just so happy."
Having won gold in the sprint classic final and the pursuit, as well as a bronze in the 10km free, this was Bjoergen's fourth medal in Vancouver to cap an excellent fortnight.
She has the chance of a fifth medal in Saturday's 30km mass start.
Germany's Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle added silver to her gold from Monday's team sprint and said she was delighted.
"It's absolutely crazy, I didn't expect this at all," said the German.
"Things didn't go so well for us at the start of the Games, but then we won the team sprint and now this on top of that. Crazy!
Sweden's Anna Olsson put her country in front after the first leg before World Cup overall leader Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland overhauled a 38.2sec gap to move her nation from 10th to first on the second classical leg.
Her team-mates could not sustain such a devastating pace over the next two freestyle legs and Norway moved from third to first on the third leg through Steira who handed Bjoergen the lead.
With sky-high confidence, the Norwegian opened up a huge gap on her fourth-leg rivals and grabbed a national flag in the stadium to cross the finish line with nearly half a minute's advantage.
