Chernetski wins 2018 Arctic Race of Norway

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Russia's Sergeï Chernetskiy of Astana became the sixth overall winner of the Arctic Race of Norway after Thor Hushovd (2013), Steven Kruijswijk (2014), Rein Taaramäe (2015), Gianni Moscon (2016) and Dylan Teuns (2017). Mathieu van der Poel took a second stage victory on his last road race of the year before he resumes racing cyclo-cross in one month.

 "I'm very happy with this victory," Chernetskiy commented after getting the trophy representing the emblem of the North Cape on stage in Alta. "I must thank everyone from my team for having helped me save the leader's jersey. Our tactic today consisted in controlling the race from the start, especially the riders who were in second and third position behind me [Markus Hoelgaard from Joker-Icopal and Colin Joyce of Rally Cycling].

"We had to make sure that they wouldn't take any bonifications. This is a very big victory for me. I hadn't won anything for a long time and this is my first win for Astana [since he joined from Katusha in 2017]. This is the team I wanted to ride for and I'm happy to ride for a big team and repay them for their confidence."

There was no threat really for the race leader in the 12-man group that rode away quickly after the flag off, comprising Guy Niv (Israel Cycling Academy), Tiago Machado (Katusha-Alpecin), Sébastien Delfosse and Julien Mortier (WV Aqua Protect-Veranclassic), Kristoffer Skjerping (Joker-Icopal), Mekseb Debesay and Connor Swift (Dimension Data), Cyrille Lemoine (Cofidis), Preben van Hecke (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Wesley Kreder (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Nikolay Mihaylov (Delko Marseille Provence-KTM) and Miguel Bryon (Holowesko-Citadel).

After 10km of racing, their advantage was already 45 seconds'. The highest ranked on GC being Van Hecke, 24th at 2:09', Astana maintained the time difference just above three minutes.

On the final laps in Alta, Direct Energie took over from the Kazakh team at the helm of the peloton. Machado tried to avoid the return of the main pack by breaking away from the leading group with 13km to go but he was reined in two kilometres further. The Corendon-Circus team of stage 1 and stage 3 winners Mathieu Van der Poel and Adam Toupalik showed their motivation for getting one more victory. Debesay was swallowed by the bunch 9km before the end. The peloton was very active in the Thomasbakken climb 5km before the finish. It was all back together with 2km to go, except for Swift and Skjerping who forged on until the last kilometre.

Van der Poel was perfectly positioned. Nicolas Roche launched the sprint but the Dutch champion passed him with 200 metres to go to cross the line with a significant advantage over Sondre Holst Enger (Israel Cycling Academy) and Quentin Pacher (Vital Concept).

"I expected Van der Poel to pass me to be honest," Roche told Cyclingnews. "I was hoping for a top 3 but other guys came fast from behind.

"It was a hard sprint," Van der Poel confirmed. "It was very fast on the local course. The front group still had quite an advantage, so the peloton did a great job to catch them. It's been amazing to ride the Arctic Race of Norway with the whole team like this. It's nice to finish the road season with a win. I'm very happy about it and I'd love to come back to this race in the future."

Van der Poel's teammate Adam Toupalik is the revelation of the sixth Arctic Race of Norway, having won stage 3 in style as he fended off the whole chasing peloton. It's a breakthrough in Markus Hoelgaard's career as well. The brother of Daniel Hoelgaard who rides in the WorldTour for Groupama-FDJ came second overall and seems ready to step up at the age of 23.

"It's my biggest result so far in my career," the runner up told Cyclingnews.

"It means a lot to me with such a big help from my team Joker-Icopal. We had a good week. Today we thought the breakaway would stick to the finish. With Kristoffer Skjerping who is fast and strong at the front, we had some big hope for him to win if the break stayed away, and then I was hoping to do something from the peloton but the course wasn't as hard as we thought. It was so fast with riders going for a sprint finish that I had no chance to try and win the Arctic Race of Norway but to defend the second place is a satisfaction."

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