TRENTO, Italy, February 24 (R-Sport) - Russia clinched the team sprint gold medal at the Nordic world ski championships in Italy on Sunday.

Vancouver 2010 bronze medalist Alexei Petukhov and Nikita Kriukov completed the Val di Fiemme course in 21 minutes, 30.98 seconds, half a second ahead of double Vancouver gold medalist Marcus Hellner and Emil Jonsson.

Kazakh duo Nikolay Chebotko and Alexey Poltoranin claimed the bronze by three hundredths of a second, edging out Canada into fourth.

It was a second gold for Kriukov as these championships after the 27-year-old won the 1-kilometer sprint on Thursday.

The only other athlete to claim two golds so far is Marit Bjorgen of Norway, who won the women's 15km pursuit and individual sprint.