Team Canada took a sensational victory by winning the men's 5,000m short track speed skating relay at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games on Friday.

This is Canada's 10th gold at the Vancouver Games which enabled the host to be on top of the medal table.

Leading by Charles Hamelin, who clinched the title of 500m event earlier Friday evening, the host team moved into the lead with 21 to go as Olivier Jean overtook China, which had led the first half of the race.

Francois-Louis Tremblay, bronze medallist in the 500m race took the last skate and held on for a close victory.

"The strategy was to be extremely confident, our strategy was called 'Operation Cobra' which was where Francois-Louis had one minute and ten seconds rest before he did the last two laps, and the last two laps were very good," said Hamelin.

"I was thinking only about the gold, I knew it was a possibility," said Tremblay.

Canada took its second short track speed skating gold at Vancouver in six minutes and 44.224 seconds while the defending champion South Korea was edged to second in 6:44.446.

Although Apolo Anton Ohno failed to defend his title in the 500m event with a result of qualification in the final, the prolific world-class skater led his U.S. team to finish third in 6:44.498. This is Ohno's eigth medal from three Olympic Games.