Kazakhstan cross country skiers stormed to victory at the women's 4X5km relay as the hosts of the next Asian Games took the third gold in the sport at the 6th Asian Winter Games at Beidahu, Jilin city on Saturday.

Kazakhstan, losing the women's sprint free title to China's Wang Chunli on Tuesday, eased to the title clocking in one hour four minutes and 42.2 seconds, a big cushion of one minute and 43.2 seconds ahead of the Chinese team.

Japan was third with one minute and 4 seconds further back.

Kazakhstan broke its gold drought on Wednesday, winning two titles in a row in the cross country competitions.

"We must win the race because we lost the sprint gold unexpectedly," said Oxana Yatskaya, the third-racing athlete of the Kazakhstan relay team comprising of Yelena Kolomina, Yelena Antonova, Oxana Yatskaya and Svetlana Malakhova.

"The Chinese team are up and up in recent years, they beat Japan to third place (in relay race). It seemed that in today's match the Chinese skiers were not good at the upward running," she added.

Per-Eric Ronnestrand, the Swede who has been coaching the Chinese cross country team for about one year after the Turin Games, was quite satisfied with the performance of the women

athletes.

"Kazakhstan is a strong team, who have been in the skiing World Cup circuit for about six years, while we started the World Cup only last year, so it is already a big success to become the number two after beating Japan," said Per-Eric Ronnestrand.

"The Chinese team are moving forward step by step, and we will beat Kazakhstan four years later in their country."

The 7th Asian Winter Games will be held at Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the central Asian country is also in a bid to host the 2014 winter Olympics.

Source: Xinhua