Anchor Petter Northug battled from behind in a brilliant display of power to give Norway to its fourth consecutive title in the men's 4×10-km cross country relay Friday.
Norway clocked a time of 1 hour, 30 minutes, 49.2 seconds, pipping Russia to gold by 3.2 seconds. Sweden claimed bronze, 3.5 behind Norway.
"I'm proud of the boys today and glad we were able to push hard, especially on the second leg," said Northug. "It was an impressive race and it feels really great to get this medal."
Norway jumped into the lead on the first leg, but soon found its Russian and Swedish rivals determined to try to put an end to its winning streak.
With Mathias Fredriksson at the poles, Sweden surged ahead on the second exchange on the Shirahatayama course.
Russia's Alexander Legkov later found his way to front of the trio at the end of the third leg, before Sweden moved into the lead again in the fourth.
As the trio entered the final stretch coming into Shirahatayama stadium, Northug pulled ahead of Sweden's Anders Soedergren and Russia's Eugeni Dementiev to finish in convincing fashion.
Germany finished a distant fourth, 50.5 seconds behind Norway.
Host nation Japan, consisting of Katsuhito Ebisawa, Shunsuke Komamura, Osamu Yamagishi and Masaaki Kozu, was 15th in the 17-team field 5:50.4 behind the winners.