Kristoff makes it two for two at Tour des Fjords

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Alexander Kristoff scored an expected second straight stage win at the Tour des Fjords ending up in Haugesund, the hometown of his teammate Sven-Erik Bystrøm, who again played a key role in Katusha’s strategy. The Norwegian claimed his 15th victory of the season ahead of up-and-coming Jasper Stuyven, 23, from Trek Factory Racing.

“It was hard to wait for the sprint because it was very cold”, Kristoff told Cyclingnews. “But we had the sprint under control. I was never scared in the last three kilometers. But of course, you never know. There are many fast guys here. My advantage is to have the best lead out.”

Stage 2 was planned as a standard sprinters’ affair at the difference of the first one that Kristoff still won. The scenario suited the Tour of Flanders winner at perfection with three riders going up the road in the first hill, right after the start in Jondal. Michal Podlaski (Activejet), Antwan Tolhoek (Rabobank Development) and Ole Andre Austevoll (FixIT.no) were the courageous attackers of the day. They went clear while the road was still dry but only ten per cent of the race wasn’t rain soaked.

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“Everybody in the bunch was a bit demoralized today because of the cold and the rain”, Kristoff stated, as the riders unfortunately got no chance to admire the fjords and the Låtefossen waterfalls. “It was freezing, we were shaking on our bikes, we just wanted to finish. That’s why we caught the break quite early. There was still one guy from FixIT in the front but he was just keeping a good speed to stay warm.”

The leading trio reached a nine minutes advantage at km 35, after which Katusha and Tinkoff-Saxo maintained the distance around five minutes. With 25km to go, Austevoll insisted by himself and received the help of Haavard Blikra (Coop-Øster Hus).

They weren’t the only ones eager to ride away from the peloton to avoid freezing. Thomas Larsen (Sparebanken Sør) took some advantage with 18km to go, so did his team-mate Andreas Erland and Pawel Bernas (Activejet) with 7km to go, but without any illusion since the Joker team was also busy covering all the moves for their sprinter Daniel Hoelgaard.

Trek Factory Racing also showed some intentions to challenge Kristoff but it was unclear for which one of their sprinters while at the same time their team-mate Giacomo Nizzolo leads the points competition at the Giro d’Italia. In Norway, a choice had to be made between Danny van Poppel and Stuyven. The latter emerged to claim the white jersey of best young rider.

“Yesterday I was the only one in the front group, since the GC might be determined by seconds, we decided to go for me”, Stuyven . That’s why we played my cards. Van Poppel put me in a very good position going into the last kilometer. I thought why not going a little bit earlier, 270 or 250 metres to go, and force Kristoff to come around. He’s the only one who passed me so I got the second place, he was pretty fast. He’s world class in this kind of sprints, also in the classics. He’s unbeatable at the moment. I hope to get some more results and do a good GC at Tour des Fjords. With three more days to come, we have to stay focused and safe.”

Is Kristoff able to win five stages out of five? It looks like it… “I’m on the run now, so let’s see if I can do it”, he answer confidently, “but if there’s a non-dangerous breakaway we’ll maybe let it go because we want to protect the yellow jersey.” 

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