The Norwegians all hoped that Lars Petter Nordhaug (Belkin) would take the spoils on the first stage of the inaugural Tour de Fjords as the crowd favourite had made it into a late breakaway. However, Sergey Chernetskiy (Katusha) emerged as the strongest from the 4-rider group and the young Russian ended up taking a big breakthrough win in solo fashion and the first leader's jersey in the race.

With big favourite and teammate Alexander Kristoff sitting in the peloton behind, Chernetskiy had a plausible excuse for not doing any work in the front group.

That allowed him to save energy for a race late attack and he left behind crowd favourite Lars-Petter Nordhaug who had been one of the instigators of the move. He crossed the line with a comfortable 17-second gap over his chasers to take the first leader's jersey in the new race.

He will take his lead into tomorrow's busy day which starts with a 100km lumpy stage that could end in a sprint. In the evening, the riders are set to tackle a 24km team time trial which is likely to have a crucial impact on the final GC in the 4-stage race.

"I am really happy with today's victory” - said Chernetskiy – “I've waited for it for a long time. Today the team's strategy appointed Alexander Kristoff as the leader, because the stage was expected to be decided in a sprint: but in the end there were many attacks and I decided to enter the breakaway. First I thought I was going to take it under control, but finally I tried for myself. I'm very satisfied with my performance also because it was a hard stage because of the cold and rainy weather: now I'll do my best in order to keep the jersey."