The quartet of Vinzenz Geiger, Fabian Riessle, Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek triumphed in a time of 46min 9.8sec, beating defending champions Norway - whose team was made up of Jan Schmid, Espen Andersen, Jarl Magnus Riiber and Joergen Graabak - by 52.7 seconds.

Austria's Wilhelm Denifl, Lukas Klapfer, Bernhard Gruber and Mario Seidl were a further 15.1 seconds behind in third.

Germany, the reigning world champions, began the 4x5 kilometres cross-country relay race six seconds behind Austria, who were first out of the gate after winning the large hill ski jumping competition with 469.5 points.

But following a dominant performance, Rydzek carried the German flag over the line to secure his country’s first Olympic team gold medal since Calgary 1988.

"I could enjoy the cross-country part because my team-mates did an amazing job," he said.

"It's so much fun to win together."

Frenzel added: "It was not so easy because at the beginning of the season we had problems on the jumping hill.

"But everybody here in Pyeongchang did a really good job and it was a really good teamwork today."

Victory completed Germany's domination of the sport at Pyeongchang 2018 with five-time world champion Frenzel defending his individual normal hill crown last week and Rydzek leading a German one-two-three in the individual large hill event on Tuesday (February 20).

Frenzel now has three Olympic gold medals in Nordic combined, a record he shares with Austria's Felix Gottwald, Finland's Samppa Lajunen and fellow German Ulrich Wehling.

Germany join Finland as the only country to win three gold medals in the sport in one Winter Olympics.

Finland achieved the feat at Salt Lake City 2002.

Today's gold medal was Germany's 13th in total at Pyeongchang 2018, beating their record of 12 set at Nagano 1998 and Salt Lake City 2002.