Samuelsson built on the platform laid by Emma Nilsson, Mona Brorsson and Martin Ponsiluoma to finish in a combined time of 1 hour 05min 16.0sec.

The Swedish quartet completed the event, where the women tackled a six kilometres course and the men 7.5km, 17.7 seconds ahead of Germany's Nadine Horchler, Janina Hettich, Lucas Fratzscher and Philipp Horn.

The bronze medal was won by Dzinara Alimbekava, Hanna Sola, Roman Yaliotnau and Sergey Bocharnikov of Belarus, a further 12.1 seconds back.

"I missed seven times yesterday, so it was time to do better," said Samuelsson. 

"It was my strategy to attack from the beginning and to apply pressure on the rest of the field. 

"It worked perfectly well."

The single mixed relay, involving one athlete from each nation, was won by the Russian pair of Evgeniya Pavlova and Dmitry Malyshko in a time of 36min 30.3sec.

Pavlova and Malyshko were too quick and too accurate for the rest of the field, crossing 20.9 seconds in front of Ana Magnusson and and Jesper Nelin of Sweden.

Lou Jeanmonnot and Aristide Begue of France completed the podium as they took the bronze medals.

The event in Minsk is due to resume on Saturday (February 23) with the men's and women's sprints after a rest day tomorrow.