Teammates Try to Sprint EACH OTHER for Victory?! Arctic Race of Norway 2025 Stage 1

Lanterne Rouge presents highlights of Arctic Race of Norway 2025 Stage 1.

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Credits:
Footage | Amaury Sport Organisation
Photos | Cor Vos (unless stated otherwise)

The Arctic race of Norway had predictably arctic conditions today. We have a lot of grippy sprints, uphill sprints. Andreas Sleenson won this on the very exciting Stavanga final stage a few years ago in 2022. Today we have an uphill sprint in Hashtad. It’s a hard stage though. Lot of short steep climbs, wind, rain. It’s never, you know, it’s never easy. There’s good attacking opportunities in the Arctic race of Norway. Always a good race, especially for punchy sprinters. That beach looks quite nice. Uh but we had a pretty strong breakaway actually. I was a bit surprised that uh there were so many in the break especially from Tetma and especially from UNOX that Zveres was able to go on the break. He is the former or maybe current Norwegian national champion and he was taking bonus seconds at these sprints. He takes 10 seconds across the stage. Uh, which makes his day in the breakaway well worthwhile cuz he wasn’t going to be competitive in the uphill sprint. We have Tom Pitcock here for GC for Q36.5 Pro Cycling. Akipo Karn Farmer were also pacing I think for Po Mikuel but they attack they’re like who have we got who’s a bit more accustomed to these weather conditions and it’s their Luxembourger Matt Venel who was a very good U23 rider last year and he’s on joined their team um but he’s brought back with 14ks to go. Israel Premier Techch have a number of options for this uphill sprint. They have uh Corbyn Strong of course who wins these sort of sprints for fun. Riley Shien as well as here Astana are points hunting and they’ve got great riders for the punchy final stage with Scaroni and Clemo Shampus but uh Inger Britson and the other rest of the breakway were brought back. Uh the more attacks but 4Ks to go. It’s going to be a sprint. Uh Israel Premier Techch and Tudtor Pro Cycling who have Rick Plus who won Muscat Classic. He’s a versatile sprinter. The Dutch man’s having his breakout season. Uh Estan are also pretty happy with the sprint they were pacing with uh Sharmik all day and it’s grippy like I said there’s a little uphill descent right hand corner wet conditions so you can go earlier Israel Premier go position Corbyn strong earlier they one guy in front of him with 1.3ks to go with 1k to go he’s third wheel but he’s now spent less energy than the others he doesn’t have to try and dive bomb in wet corners it’s strung out in those corners so it’s not as easy to move up and He’s now just checking his, you know, there’s another corner at 750 m to go. So, they move him up early. They’ve also got Shien just a bit behind and Stanner are not right there. They’re not where they need to be probably doing a lead out next to strong. That was the way to beat Coleman Strong today was to do a lead out beside him. If you wait and let his team do another lead out like this, then he’s just going to win. He follows and just uh takes the coups rider off the arcade wheel. 500 meters to go. And as long as he doesn’t get boxed, I mean, here’s what I’m talking about. If Aana, if they really did a hard lead out or Uno X earlier than this and overlap Strong and got him boxed, maybe there’s a chance, maybe. But uh Strong actually squeezes uh left and then the Uno X train loses momentum. The Aana train also had to cut it off its momentum a little bit, but Strong does get I mean, see, you see here, he got boxed. So, if the Uno X train went a little bit earlier, maybe it could have happened. Unfortunately for Aana, the coup reps rider goes right, that opens the space at 250 out of that corner for Strong. And once he opens the taps uphill, clicks into the right gear. There’s just nobody here that can beat him in this sort of sprint. I think this sprint was won by Zangler a few years ago. He goes to barriers and even uh I mean if he was on another team he might have had a disagreement with him his teammate coming second. So the one two for Israel Premier it was a little bit too hard for Ballerini in the end and especially when that jump came from Feldman. It’s Feldman on the right hand side that gives the perfect lead up to Beermans. A nice jumper that caught uh Ballerini flatfooted. He had to restart his sprint. Shien comes from deep. Tiller was kind of spoxed on the left hand side. Sheen keeps him boxed and takes just takes the wheel of his teammate off him and he does it really well Shien because he he’s looking he doesn’t try to bring the other guys into the sprint. He’s always looking underneath. He doesn’t want to actually drag tiller up to beat strong. So I mean Israel premier to take 10 and six bonus seconds in the stage win. Tiller third then Plymer’s Bman Feldman Bellerini good mashad perml Champas here is what the Kiwi had to say after the race. Gobin congratulations after this uh pretty tough day. Yeah, I mean you’re you’re you’re flying after victories uh last week in Wonia. You do it again here in Norway. Yeah, I had a a nice reset in the middle of the season and uh a good training camp in Levvenia and uh yeah, I’m really enjoying racing with the guys. Uh the training camp in Levvenia was really nice uh on the bike, but off the bike as well. Uh just spending a lot of time with my teammates there as well was was nice. And then I think we’ve had a really good uh environment since then coming to Woodlon and getting the win there. and then uh the first stage today as well. So yeah, things are things are going well and I’m really enjoying racing my bike at the moment. Yeah, you were you were a bit of the favorites, one of the main favorites today. Not too much pressure on your shoulders. No, not really. Uh yeah, I just I enjoy the pressure actually. I enjoy uh feeling the the pressure of uh yeah, the guys uh really putting in their their best to help me. Um obviously everyone in the sports trains really really hard to so to see the work my teammates put in and and then uh the way they sacrifice for me on a in a in a race uh yeah really motivates me. So I enjoy the pressure and uh yeah I really enjoy when uh it pays off and I uh yeah perform and uh yeah can pay my teammates back. But I hope you enjoyed the video. We got more stages like this. Can you extra the numbers? I mean, they’re also on 10 seconds with so it’s going to be a real bonus second game. Can be a very tactical race. Hope you enjoy the video. See you tomorrow.