Strong finish: Austria's Relay Team wins Overall World Cup

Yanqing (FIL/23 Feb 2025) At the end of the 2024/25 season, Austria and Germany fought a thrilling duel for the overall victory in the final of the EBERSPAECHER Team Relay presented by BMW in Yanqing.

Austria in the line-up with Lisa Schulte, Thomas Steu/Wolfgang Kindl, Jonas Müller, and Selina Egle/Lara Kipp won by 0.165 seconds ahead of Germany (Merle Fräbel, Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt, Max Langenhan, Jessica Degenhardt/Cheyenne Rosenthal). With this, the red-white-red team also secured the overall victory with 455 to 450 points. “Awesome,” said Schulte, “particularly Selina and Lara performed outstandingly well.” The Team Relay was introduced in the 2010/11 season, but this is only the second time that Germany was unable to win the overall standings.

The US team (Ashley Farquharson, Zachary Di Gregorio/Sean Hollander, Tucker West, Chevonne Forgan/Sophia Kirkby) finished in third place with a gap of 1.602 seconds ahead of Latvia (2.231 seconds behind). This meant that the team of Kendija Aparjode, Martins Bots/Roberts Plume, Kristers Aparjods, and Anda Upite/Zane Kaluma) took third place in the final standings with 270 points. Italy (Verena Hofer, Emanuel Rieder/Simon Kainzwaldner, Dominik Fischnaller, Andrea Vötter/Marion Oberhofer; 2.586) dropped back behind team USA (255) with 250 points due to their fifth place in the race. The team from China with Hu Huilan, Jubayi Saikeyi/Hou Shuo, Bao Zhenyu, and Gulijienaiti/Zhao Jiaying finished sixth, 9.763 seconds behind.