Germany's Katharina Hennig makes her move. She drops a gear and zooms past her Russian rival.

There is now a gap of 23 seconds between the front two and the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish skiers behind.

Each team has four athletes and the relay starts with a mass start, with the teams which fared best at the most recent World Championships on the front row.

Each athlete skis a leg of the race and then tags a team-mate by touching any part of their body within an exchange zone.

The first two legs are skied using classic technique on a classic course; the second two are skied freestyle on a freestyle course.

If there’s a tie that can’t be broken by a photo finish, the teams involved will share the ranking.

Image source, Getty Images

Let's get back to the Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Skiing Centre. That's where - yep, you've guessed it - the cross-country skiing is taking place.

The strong start from the Russians continued, with Yulia Stupak handing over a sizeable lead to Natalia Napryaeva at the first changeover

Germany, Norway - recovering from that earlier fall, Sweden and Finland are in pursuit.

Kent Simpson
Commentator on BBC TV

I loved everything about that game. This United States team have come out and they've got the hockey world talking.

It is a young team and they play with a different style then Canada does.

There's so much talent and skill, they're brash, arrogant and the team work and speed that they play with was just too much for Canada.

Earlier we told you the United States won 4-2 in the heavyweight ice hockey clash with Canada.

No NHL stars, of course, but still plenty of quality.

Here's what Kent Simpson - former Canadian player turned BBC analyst - made of it...

So where's the money going? Tough to call. But that Norway fall could be crucial.

Norway are the favourites and are looking to defend their title, albeit with a different squad to four years ago. The new-look team won the World Championships title last year.

Sweden have a strong team as per, but showed they are fallible by finishing sixth in the Worlds.

Who else could be in the mix for a medal? Probably looking at Finland, the Russian Olympic Committee and the United States.

Great Britain? Not involved.

Oh no! There's been a fall at the back of the leading pack. And it's a nightmare for Norway.

Appears that Latvia's Patricija Eiduk has crashed into Norway's Tiril Udnes Weng.

Both staggered to the deck like they'd been clotheslined by Hulk Hogan.

The Russians race into the lead in the first leg. Out swinging like Ivan Drago.

Opening Russian skier Yulia Stupak is aiming to get out quickly and build up a lead which her colleagues can build on.

The course plan has more high gradient blocks than an intense setting on the treadmill. Giving me shivers looking at it, this time on a Saturday morning.

Image source, Getty Images

The skiers charge off the line and up the hill. Game faces are on.

The pack - brows furrowed and ski poles daggering into the snow - looks like one of those menacing groups of hikers which overtake you on Mam Tor.

All the gear, all the idea. While you're slipping about in your Sambas.

Grab your pick and shovel, we're back on the gold rush. And it seems to be Norway or Sweden who will mine the nugget in the women's 4x5km relay.

These two nations are the powerhouses in the sport and the relays are where the rivalry between the nations becomes the most intense

At Pyeongchang 2018, the two nations' women's relay teams were just two seconds apart after 20 kilometres - and more than 40 seconds ahead of anyone else. Expect similar this year.

Image source, Getty Images

Good morning, you late risers. Just in time for this whopper of an Olympic breakfast.

Here's what's on the plate - all times are BST:

• *0730-0845: Cross country skiing - women's 4 x 5km relay
• 0840: Ice hockey - Japan v Finland quarter-final (women)
• *0853: Speed skating - men’s 500m (feat. GB's Kersten)
• *0900-1015: Men’s biathlon 10km sprint
• *1000-1230: Ski jumping - men’s large hill
• 1100-1430: Ice dance (GB Gibson and Fear)
• 1205-1500: Curling women’s round robin session five (GB v USA)
• *1220-1440: Women’s skeleton runs 3/4 (GB Deas and Crowley)

Anything marked with a * represents a medal event on day eight.

Age is only number, as the cliché goes. But a cliché can be full of truth - although that's a cliché in itself - and it was proved by snowboarders Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner earlier.

Baumgartner, 40, admitted that it had been "tough" to watch younger athletes take over the sport and that he had struggled with feelings of being pushed out of the field.

However, he also used those feelings as motivation.

"As you get older, you grow and you know so much about yourself. For me... you get hungry. You want more because you know that there's an expiration day that's coming," he says.

Image source, Getty Images

It is 07:19 GMT and this is your hourly news bulletin straight from Beijing...

• Day eight of the Winter Games has given us one medal so far;
• That golden nugget was claimed by USA in the Snowboard Cross mixed team event;
• The team of Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner won what was the first relay event in snowboard cross at a Games;
• The duo have a combined age of 76 and after waiting 16 years to get over throwing a gold medal chance away, Jacobellis has now won two in a week;
• Great Britain's Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes came sixth;
• A further five medals will be handed out on day eight;
• Great Britain are yet to win a medal

Last week I ignorantly insisted I could walk home with our weekly big shop locked in each hand. The bags took their toll on me I won't lie and the whole thing looked and felt a bit like this...

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Olympic veteran Edson Bindilatti says it is time that Brazil's bobsleigh team finally ditched its nickname 'Frozen Bananas' and earned some respect on the ice track at the Winter Games.

The 42-year-old will pilot the Brazilian bobsleigh at what is his fifth Winter Games, having made his debut at Salt Lake City in 2002.

Back then, the Brazilian bobsleigh team was dubbed the 'Frozen Bananas' because of its bright-yellow sled.

"Receiving the nickname was quite funny, we didn't see it as an offence or a put-down," Bindilatti told AFP.

"Our sled was yellow and the banana is a typical Brazilian fruit. "We took it with a lot of good humour because it was something new for everyone.

"As we evolved in the sport we became more competitive, we started calling ourselves 'Blue Birds'".

Image source, Getty Images

Sweden double their lead at the curling. They go 2-0 up on Canada in the fifth end. Four wins from four would be a cracking statement if they keep this up.

If you fire up BBC One now from your pillow or even hit play at the top of this live text you can start your day with some curling.

Sweden edging out Canada as we speak in men's competition. Sweden have three wins from three so far and Canada have two from three.

Go on, you know you want to...

Image source, .

We've given the Jamaica Cool Runnings thing its daily airing.

What about our man from Harrogate - Axel Brown - who is representing Trinidad and Tobago in the two-man event in Beijing.

Brown has a Trinidadian mother and so despite competing for Great Britain until 2021, he's switched allegiance.

“I have always preferred sports with short fast efforts like sprinting, which is why I played American football in place of rugby," he explained when detailing his passage into bobsleigh in 2014.

"I also like the idea of taking one aspect of a skill and trying to do it really well. So, bobsleigh has allowed me to focus and really find a niche.”

Image source, Getty Images

Anna Thompson
BBC Sport in Beijing

British skeleton racer Matt Weston has acknowledged that "questions need to be raised" over the team's failure to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.

Weston was 15th and Marcus Wyatt 16th in the men's event, while Laura Deas and Brogan Crowley are out of medal contention in the women's competition.

BBC commentator John Jackson, who won bobsleigh bronze in 2014, criticised the sleds used by the British team.

"Something's not right," Weston told BBC Sport.

Read more of what Weston had to say here.

Image source, Getty Images