Arctic Race of Norway: Joyce wins windblown stage to Kjøllefjord

Colin Joyce of Rally Cycling claimed his first win of the year against WorldTour riders at the end of stage 2 in the Arctic Race of Norway that saw Russia's Sergei Chernetski of Astana taking over from Mathieu Van der Poel in the lead of the overall classification.

"To win this race here is huge for me," the Idaho-born fast man reacted. "This is my biggest win. The team has been working really hard for me, so it's a really good way to thank them. Yesterday we kinda screwed up but we ended up riding all day. It's nice to show that we came to race!"

Van der Poel started on a high note as he grabbed one second bonus in the first sprint behind Adrien Petit (Direct Energie) and Alberto Bettiol (BMC).

After the first summit at Duoriejeaggi (km 45), where Krister Hagen (Coop) was first ahead of Nicolas Roche (BMC) and Sindre Lunke (Fortuneo-Samsic), a group of six leaders was formed in three waves as Ryan Anderson (Rally) and Loïc Chetout (Cofidis) were reinforced firstly by Henrik Evensen (Joker-Icopal) and Dennis van Winden (Israel Cycling Academy), secondly by Yannick Martinez (Delko Marseille-Provence KTM) and Lunke. The latter crested the first category Ifjordfjellet summit (km 60) at the front, before Van Winden and Anderson. The advantage of the six escapees reached four minutes after 65km of racing.

They were racing ahead of schedule but changes of direction were going to make the stage eventful. With still 128km remaining, seven riders including Van der Poel and Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic) countered behind the six leading riders. They chased flat out for 25 kilometres before the regrouped peloton reduced the deficit to 1:45 with 100km to go. Lunke went for more points and the conquest of the salmon jersey of King of the Mountains in the second category 1 climb of the day at Bekkarfordfjellet (km 120.5) while Chetout and Martinez got dropped.

As the peloton came closer to the four remaining breakaway riders, Barguil crashed from an echelon within 50km to go. The Frenchman was forced to pull out. It was all together again 40km before the end.

Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) put the hammer down in the last climb of the day, the Hopseidet summit (cat. 1) with 35.5km to go. Only his teammate Sergei Chernetski, second overall, and Bettiol managed to follow him over the top. The peloton was split into pieces and Van der Poel got caught in the third group with a deficit of two minutes with 20km remaining while Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), a very active member of the first chasing group, went down in a windy curve.

Fuglsang, Chernetski and Bettiol looked set to stay away but 11 chasers came across 5km before the end. Chernetski sped up in the crosswind with 4.5km to go and took a three-second time bonus at the sprint. 11 riders regrouped at the front with 2km to go. Michael Schär (BMC) sped up but it was a sprint finish that looked like going well for Van Winden but Joyce showed his top end speed to the European riders. Norway's Markus Hoelgaard (Joker-Icopal) rounded out the podium.

"There were kind of a lot of attacks in the last downhill like 3k to go or so," Joyce described. "I knew I had a decent sprint. I was feeling OK so I thought I'd just follow as much as possible. It came back together with 700 metres to go. I tried to stay at the front. Then at 200 or 150 to go, I opened it up and I managed to take it by a little bit. I'm happy with that.

"This whole stage was difficult. It was super windy. It took a while for the break to go. That made it hard at the beginning. It was hilly all day. The climbs were hard and it was super windy at the top of the climbs. On the last KOM it was really exploding. I found myself a bit too far back and I just rode at my steady pace up the climb. I was able to make the second group, and we worked together to bring back those three leaders."

Chernetski moved to the first place overall with an advantage of four seconds ahead of Joyce and five seconds ahead of Hoelgaard. Van der Poel dropped to 14th at 1:11 at half way into the sixth Arctic Race of Norway.

"I've trained hard to perform in this race so I'm happy with how it went today," Chernetski said. "I hope I can keep the lead till the end."

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