Bonneu rises in the name of his grandfathers
August 6 th 2024 - 18:51
He lost one grandfather three months ago, and the other one just yesterday as he was in Bodø to take part in this Arctic Race of Norway. As he couldn’t go back home to mourn the loss, Kamiel Bonneu (Flanders-Baloise) decided to live through the duel by racing to the best of his abilities on a stage set to be deciding for the general classification with a mountaintop finish atop Jakobsbakken. His performance on this last climb was exciting as it was emotional, as he dropped Davide de Pretto (Jayco-AlUla) with 500 meters to go to raise his arms in victory hoping that both his grandfathers will feel proud of him wherever they are. Uno-X’s Magnus Cort was second across the finish line to take the midnight sun jersey as an overall leader of the race from his teammate Alexander Kristoff. Cort holds a 1” lead on Bonneu and 7” on Kevin Vermaerke (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) ahead of the fourth and final stage, which finishes with an uphill kick in Bodø.
104 riders took the start in the third stage of the 2024 Arctic Race of Norway, held over 155,7 kilometres between Tverlandet and the Jakobsbakken climb in the outskirts of Sulitjelma, at 14:18. There were two DNSs: Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) and Filippo Colombo (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team). The mountaintop finish was deemed to be decisive in the outcome of the overall classification, and was preceded by some lumpy terrain with three categorized climbs on the way towards the final one. Seven cyclists took off at kilometer 5: Kiko Galván (Equipo Kern Pharma), Gilles de Wilde (Flanders-Baloise), KOM leader Jelle Johannink (TDT-Unibet), Louis Blouwe (Bingoal WB), Filippo Ridolfo (Novo Nordisk), Anton Stensby and Kalle Petter Kvam (Team Coop-Repsol). Galván, though, would ease up 18 kilometers into the stage and drop back to the peloton driven by Uno-X’s Rasmus Tiller and Markus Hoelgaard.
Jelle Johannink nets the peacock jersey
Already wearing the peacock jersey, Johannink was first across Kvikstadheia (Cat 2, km 25,1), Misvaer (Cat 3, km 50,8) and Ljøsenhammeren (Cat 2, km 68,7) to secure himself another day at the top of the Mountains classification. Blouwe was the fastest at Enge (IS, km 43) as Kvam was at Rognan (IS, km 85), where the time gap between the front group and the main one was clocked at 1’45” after peaking at 2’50” at kilometer 54.
De Pretto and Bonneu were the strongest up the final climb
Johannink took a bow in the breakaway with 25 kilometers to go, at which point the peloton was 1’15” behind the five riders who remained in the lead. Blouwe was first across Sulitjelma (IS, km 145,4), where the escapees only kept a 20” advantage that was shut down by the bunch with 6,5 kilometers to go, already in the first ramps of the climb to Jakobsbakken (Cat 1, km 155,7). Shortly after, with 5,5 km left to race, Davide de Pretto (Jayco-AlUla) attacked and was quickly joined by Kamiel Bonneu (Flanders-Baloise). The duo built a 20” gap that proved sufficient despite the efforts from Uno-X, Israel-Premier Tech or Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team. With 500 meters to go, on the final double-digit gradients of the day, Bonneu took off to score the win while De Pretto was overtaken by a reduced group led by Magnus Cort (Uno-X) over the finish line.
