De Maar takes over race lead with Tour of Norway stage win

Curaçao's Marc de Maar of Unitedhealthcare moved into the lead in the Tour of Norway as he pipped on the finishing line of stage 2 the Polish rider he courageously broke away with thirty kilometers before the end: Maciej Paterski from CCC Polsat. The duo kept an advantage of twelve seconds over Katusha's Alexander Kristoff who is only ten seconds down in the overall ranking but concluded that his GC ambitions are over.

"It doesn't happen that often that I win a stage and take the yellow jersey, so I'm delighted," said De Maar who arrived to Norway with good form and high ambitions after being crowned the King of the Mountains at the Presidential Tour of Turkey two and half weeks ago.

Possibly the news regarding the abandon of his teammate Piotr Ignatenko, who reported a broken collarbone following a crash in the last kilometer of stage 1, was a strong indication that things wouldn't go as planned for the race leader Alexander Kristoff. But everything looked under control as Aleksandr Kuchinsky and Gatis Smukulis paced the bunch for more than half of the race behind six breakaway riders who were never allowed more than three and half minutes lead: Adrian Kurek (CCC Polsat), Preben van Hecke (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Johann van Zyl (MTN-Qhubeka), Trond Hakon Trondsen (Froy-Bianchi), Sondre-Gjerdevik Sørtveit (FixIt.no) and August Jensen (Øster Hus).

Crosswinds made Belkin and Tinkoff-Saxo riders eager to put the hammer down as they approached the last hour of racing. The breakaway got caught with 40km to go but echelons weren't formed. However, Kristoff lost most of his teammates as only Rüdiger Selig remained on his side. De Maar and Paterski tried their luck with 30km remaining.

"It was a bit of an impulse," De Maar explained. "I wasn't really thinking of any plan but sometimes that's the best. There was an opportunity to escape because the bunch hadn't split up and Katusha stopped working. I decided to jump and a CCC rider [Paterski] came with me. He was strong! We kept working together. As a group was apparently coming across, we thought it would be perfect but they didn't catch us."

Paris-Roubaix specialist Sep Vanmarcke was among the twelve chasers, so Belkin let all the work at the front of the bunch to be done by Tinkoff-Saxo. "With four kilometers to go, I tried to drop him [Paterski] off, so I didn't want to work that much anymore after that, which is understandable," De Maar continued. "Luckily, I made it in the final sprint." But it was tight between the two breakaway riders and the peloton wasn't far behind.

With a deficit of only ten seconds, Milan-San Remo winner Kristoff remains a direct threat on paper. "But I didn't come to the Tour of Norway with ambitions for the overall," the Norwegian told Cyclingnews. "I came here for stage wins and I'm disappointed that I couldn't take it today. Tomorrow it's another day with a harder course, so I don't expect to perform, I'll take it as kind of a rest day and stage 4 in Lillehammer is too hilly for me, so now the focus is on the last day for me."

"It's not going to be easy to control the race," De Maar supposed. "I'm not that used to leading a hors-category race. Normally the climbs in Norway are no problem for me and I came here with GC ambitions. It would be nice to finish on the podium."

The UHC rider last won a stage at the 2012 Tour of Britain and the 2013 Tour de Beauce.

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