Kristoff, king of Rognan
August 4 th 2024 - 18:53
Uno-X’s Alexander Kristoff took the win by storm in the first stage of the 2024 Arctic Race of Norway between Bodø and Rognan, the latter being the same city on which he already netted the maiden stage of the 2016 edition of the northernost professional road cycling event. The Norwegian legend put the icing on the cake to an excellent performance by his whole team, which led the bunch from start to finish to control and catch the five-strong breakaway that enabled Jelle Johannink (TDT-Unibet) to take the Peacock jersey as leader of the Mountains classifications. Kristoff finished off the amazing work of his fellow Uno-X riders with a powerful sprint to score his sixth stage win in the Arctic Race of Norway and become the first overall leader of this year’s edition ahead of the second stage between Beiarn and Fauske, to be raced on Monday over a 178,1-kilometre course that includes four categorised climbs spread over the journey and a gravel sector just inside the final 20 kilometres.
108 riders took the start in the first stage of the 2024 Arctic Race of Norway, held between Bodø and Rognan over 155,3 kilometres, at 14:21. The course was mostly flat on its first half, yet turned lumpy on its second one with no less than three categorized climbs ahead of a gentle descent to the finish. It was 5 kilometers into the race that Mikel Retegi (Equipo Kern Pharma), Jelle Johannink (TDT-Unibet), Pascal Eenkhoorn (Lotto-dstny), Nathan Smith (Team Novo Nordisk) and Kalle Petter Kvam (Coop-Repsol) went clear from the bunch. Eenkhoorn led the five-strong breakaway thru Øyjorda (IS, km 20,1), where the front group enjoyed a 1’20” advantage on a peloton led by Uno-X with Rasmus Tiller and Jonas Abrahamsen undertook the lion’s share of the work.
A relatively short-lived breakaway
The biggest gap between the break and the peloton was 2’20”, clocked at kilometer 49. At the summit of the climb to Kvikstadheia (Cat 2, km 93,5), where Johannink was first across, the advantage of the five riders at the front had decreased down to 2’00”. Their lead came down to nothing at Enge (IS, km 111,5), with Eenkhoorn still leading the race. Shortly after, Kvam took off on his own. At the bottom of the climb to Misvær (Cat 3, km 119,3), his teammate Eivind Broholt Fougner attacked to overtake him and be first across the summit with 10” on Johannink and 15” on Retegi, who led the peloton there. Both Fougner and Johannink were brought back by the main group on time for the Kåsmo (IS, km 126,3) intermediate sprint, where Magnus Cort (Uno-X) took the best off Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) and Kevin Vermaerke (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL).
Uno-X pulls it off
The third and last categorized climb of the day to Ljøsenhammeren (Cat 2, km 137,2) saw many attacks take place, with TotalEnergies’s Thomas Bonnet starring the main one. He was caught a few hundred meters shy from the summit, first reached by Johannink to confirm his hard-earned lead in the KOM standings. Uno-X drove the peloton all the way to the end of the stage, where its sprinter Alexander Kristoff was the fastest in the final straight defeating Cofidis’ Milan Fretin and Israel-Premier Tech’s Tom Van Asbroeck.
