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ACCENT.JOBS – WANTY AT THE TOUR OF TURKEY SPECIAL
Alexander Kristoff confirmed his current supremacy over Norway’s super star Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky in the second, slightly uphill sprint finish of the Glava Tour of Norway in Skien.
The Katusha rider overcame difficult conditions as it rained continuously during the whole day with temperatures that didn’t exceed 10°C.
“It feels great to win again”, Kristoff reacted while shaking with cold.
“But it’s so cold that it’s difficult to enjoy the victory. When I came to this race, I said I wanted to win the first three stages, so I have to try again tomorrow to reach my goal but there’ll be a lot of riders eager to beat me.”
Stage 3 is expected to be highly popular on Norway’s national day with people out in their traditional dresses.
On the roads of the Telemark region where Nordic skiing has its origins, stage 2 was contested in a similar scenario as the previous day. Seven riders went away early: Sander Cordeel (Lotto-Belisol), who passed in first position over the two climbs of the day and became the King of the Mountains, Thomas Degand (Accent Jobs-Wanty), Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural), Laurens de Vreese and Stijn Neirynck (Topsport-Vlaanderen), Michael Reihs (Cult) and Fillip Eidsheim (Oster Hus) who made the breakaway for the second day in a row.
This time, the peloton didn’t give them a margin of even three minutes, so their chances to succeed were very slim even though one of the two final laps was cancelled due to the very bad weather conditions.
Kristoff was prompt to apologize to Boasson Hagen for having cut his line unintentionally. “My brakes weren’t working in the last corner. I wanted to stay behind Edvald but I couldn’t. It was slippery”, explained the sprinter from Stavanger who knew the circuit as he won the 2011 Norwegian championship in the same street in a two-man sprint against Vegard Stake Laengen.
Boasson Hagen who is definitely not a man of controversies didn’t express any anger at Kristoff’s risky move in the finale. “I was just happy to stay on my wheels”, answered the reigning Norwegian champion. “I don’t want to accuse him of anything. We do an outdoor sport with wet and dangerous corners, that’s how it is. I’m satisfied to score more time bonus today. There are more days to come.”
It was not only the same Norwegian duo at the front. The hosting country even scored a triple with 19 year old Sondre Holst Enger of Team Plussbank taking the third place from Lithuania’s Edvaldas Siskevicius (Sojasun).
“This is an excellent result”, said the protégé of Greg LeMond’s former domestique Atle Kvalsvoll. “I was hoping for such a performance at the Tour of Norway but it was extremely hard today and I was just happy not to crash. I follow Edvald’s wheel.” Kristoff expressed his satisfaction to see a young compatriot doing well. “It’s very good to see good young riders behind us, there’ll be more Norwegian pros in the future”, said the race leader.
Full Results
1 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha 4:11:12
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling
3 Sondre H Enger (Nor) Team Plussbank
4 Evaldas Siskevicius (Ltu) Sojasun
5 Sven Vandousselaere (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
6 Marko Kump (Slo) Team Saxo-Tinkoff
7 Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
8 Andreas Stauff (Ger) MTN-Qhubeka
9 Matteo Pelucchi (Ita) IAM Cycling
10 Frederique Robert (Bel) Lotto Belisol
15 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) Accent Jobs-Wanty
30 Stefan Van Dijk (Ned) Accent Jobs-Wanty
70 Roy Jans (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
129 Tim De Troyer (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
136 Thomas Degand (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
138 Gregory Habeaux (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
142 Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Accent Jobs-Wanty
145 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Accent Jobs-Wanty
Alexander Kristoff scored his second win of the season, claiming the opening stage in the Glava Tour of Norway. The Katusha rider beat national rival Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) in a sprint finish.
“Edvald is a great rider,” commented his former teammate from the team Maxbo-Bianchi in 2007. “He’s one of the best in the world, and probably the best behind Peter Sagan for this kind of sprint finish. That’s why it means a lot to me to beat him here but I wasn’t sure until the final lap that I could do it. I didn’t feel very good in the climbs earlier in the stage.”
“It’s nothing new that Alexander is a strong sprinter,” echoed Boasson Hagen about his compatriot who won the bronze medal at the Olympic road race.
“I was expecting him to do well today. My team prepared the sprint really well, so did Blanco and Katusha. I got an excellent lead-out but I started sprinting on a gear that was possibly too big when I came into the wind.”
Kristoff was also full of praise for his Russian team albeit being left alone 350 metres before the finishing line.
“I tried to stay close to Edvald and we started at the same time,” he said. “We sprinted head-to-head. I wasn’t convinced that I could win until 50 metres to go.”
Kristoff and Boasson Hagen actually know each other well as they both come from the same development program run for years by Birger Hungerholdt who is also the organizer of the Glava Tour of Norway.
They might have different goals this week. The sprinter from Katusha announced that he eyed stage victories in the first three days while the versatile rider from Team Sky intends to repeat the overall win he got last year when the race will be contested on a more mountainous terrain around Lillehammer near his home on Saturday.
That’s why Boasson Hagen didn’t analyze stage 1 as a defeat. “With the time bonus [for second place], I have six seconds more in my favor than before the start and that’s the kind of benefit I was hoping for,” said the Norwegian national champion who will also celebrate his 27th birthday at the race on a very special occasion for the whole country as May 17 is the national day.
Being so motivated on home soil, the two local stars and the Blanco team, working for Norway’s third favorite Lars-Petter Nordhaug and sprinter Theo Bos who finished fourth, didn’t leave much room for the potential success of the breakaway that was formed after 27 kilometres of racing with six riders at the front: Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural), Ronny Martias (Sojasun), Bob Schoonbroodt (De Rijke-Shanks), Alexander Gingsjö (Team People4you), Vegard Bugge (Joker-Merida) and Fillip Eidsheim (Oster Hus).
They had a maximum advantage of eight minutes and Txurruka was the last man to be caught with 10 kilometers to go. “At 40 to go with a lead of four minutes, I even thought we could make it,” said the Basque rider who just won the Vuelta Asturias last weekend. “I wanted to profit from my good form and I’ll give it another go before the end of the Tour of Norway.”
Full Results
1 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha 4:41:59
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling
3 Sébastien Hinault (Fra) IAM Cycling
4 Theo Bos (Ned) Blanco Pro Cycling Team
5 Kristian Sbaragli (Ita) MTN-Qhubeka
6 Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
7 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) Accent Jobs-Wanty
8 Sven Vandousselaere (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
9 Francesco Lasca (Ita) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
10 Evaldas Siskevicius (Ltu) Sojasun
40 Stefan Van Dijk (Ned) Accent Jobs-Wanty
126 Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Accent Jobs-Wanty
139 Thomas Degand (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
142 Tim De Troyer (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
150 Gregory Habeaux (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
151 Roy Jans (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty
152 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Accent Jobs-Wanty
