Measurement of hadron and lepton pair production at 161 GeV < $\sqrt{s}$ < 172 GeV at LEP

We report on measurements of $\mathrm{e^+e^-}$ annihilation into hadrons and lepton pairs. The data have been taken with the L3 detector at LEP at centre--of--mass energies between 161~$\mathrm{Ge\kern -0.12em V}$ and 172~$\mathrm{Ge\kern -0.12em V}$. In a data sample corresponding to 21.2~pb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity 2728 hadronic and 868 lepton--pair events are selected. The measured cross sections and leptonic forward--backward asymmetries agree well with the Standard Model predictions. \end{abstract}