Raimo Vigants and Lauris Kaparkalejs won the senior men's team sprint freestyle world title at the 2026 FIS Roller Ski World Championships in Madona, Latvia. The home pair crossed the line in 20:12.1, beating Sweden by the tightest of margins.
A tense final sprint on home asphalt
The race ran over a 10.2-kilometre course on the second day of the championships. At the 6.1km checkpoint, nine of ten teams sat within five seconds of each other. The Latvians held second place there, then slipped to fourth just 700 metres later.
Decided in the last strides
Eight teams were still fighting for the podium at the final checkpoint. Vigants and Kaparkalejs saved their best for the very end of the race. They passed Poland in the finishing sprint and pulled clear to win cleanly.
Sweden's Erik Fransson and Simon Karlsson took silver, just 0.5 seconds back. Poland's Dominik and Kamil Bury earned bronze, a further 1.3 seconds behind. The French pair of Enzo Hudry and Simon Clavel placed eighth, eleven seconds off the winning time.
A familiar winning feeling in Madona
The world title capped a strong run for the Latvian pair on this course. They had won a World Cup team sprint at the same venue earlier in the season with a time of 20:55.47. That result put them at the top of the men's team sprint World Cup standings before the championships began.
Doing it on home ground, during the four-day championships, made the win even sweeter. Both athletes were already named to Latvia's Winter Olympics team, showing their key place in the nation's ski programme.
A quiet evening in Madona proved what the whole season had been saying: no other pair could match their finishing speed.
