The quartet of Björn Kircheisen, Eric Frenzel, Fabian Rießle and Johannes Rydzek triumphed by a margin of 41.7sec to retain the crown they won in Swedish city Falun in 2015.

Norway’s Magnus Hovdal Moan, Mikko Kokslien, Magnus Krog and Jørgen Graabak were the runners-up, while Austria’s Bernhard Gruber, Mario Seidl, Philipp Orter and Paul Gerstgraser were just over a minute behind in third after holding off Japan and Finland in the last lap.

In the jumping round, the German team registered leaps of 91, 97, 100 and 96.5 metres to earn them a total of 500.8 points and a head start of 44sec for the 4x5 kilometres race.

Japan collected a total of 468 and started together with the French team, who amassed 467.7.

Austria and Norway, meanwhile, had to attempt to make up deficits of 1:05 and 1:07 respectively.

As it turned out, there was never a lot of doubt over the German victory, with the gap to the second-placed team not dropping below 45sec.

Behind them, Norway quickly caught up with Japan, France and Austria and on the second leg, Kokslien pulled away from the other pursuers.

The gap to the chasing teams continued to grow until Graabak finished 20sec ahead of the next wave of teams coming in.

The fight for the bronze medal was only decided on the last lap, with Austria and Japan skiing together for long stretches of the race.

The Finnish crowd had reason for excitement when veteran Hannu Manninen closed the gap to only a few seconds on the first of his two laps, but Gerstgraser and Japan’s Akito Watabe worked together to keep him at bay.

In the end, Gerstgraser attacked on the last uphill and had a strong finish on his first major championship start to secure third place for Austria.

Japan came fourth, while Finland finished fifth.