Marc De Maar (UnitedHealthCare) broke Alexander Kristoff's (Katusha) stranglehold on the Tour of Norway when he won today's second stage of the race and took the leader's jersey. With the windy conditions having left Kristoff with no teammates, De Maar saw an opportunity to attack and together with Maciej Paterski (CCC) he managed to keep the peloton at bay before beating his companion in a photo finish.

 

Yesterday Alexander Kristoff was in a class of his own in the uphill sprint on the first stage of the Tour of Norway and with another slightly uphill finish in today's second stage it seemed that the Norwegian would continue to dominate his home race. However, a gutsy pair of attackers denied the home favourite the win as Marc De Maar and Maciej Paterski managed to hold off the peloton.

 

With only 4 teammates at his side, Kristoff and Katusha faced a hard day in the windy conditions and as they were left to do all the chase work behind the day's only break, it just took a wise attack in the crosswinds from Belkin and Tinkoff-Saxo to isolate the race leader 40km from the line. However, the two ProTeams failed to benefit from their work when the subsequent attacks allowed a duo to take off.

 

Paterski and De Maar worked excellently together while an 11-rider chase group completely failed to cooperate. As Kristoff had no teammates, he could do nothing to bring them back and so it was left to Tinkoff-Saxo - the only other major team to have no rider in any of the breakaway groups - to lead the chase.

 

The yellow-clad team failed in their mission though and it wasn't until Belkin realized that they were about to throw the GC away that the situation changed. The Dutch team had Sep Vanmarcke in the chase group but as they kept losing time to the leaders, they started to chase in the peloton.

 

As a consequence, the chase group was brought back but it was too late to catch the leaders. With De Maar having his sights on the overall win and Paterski focused on the stage win, the pace was kept high almost all the way to the line.

 

It was no surprise to see De Maar lead his rival in the final kilometre until he finally started to slow down just a few hundred metres from the line. He opened a long sprint and most expected Paterski to come past.

 

However, the UnitedHealthCare rider was impressively strong and Paterski failed to pass him on the uphill finishing straight. In a photo finish, De Maar narrowly held off his rival to take both the stage win and the leader's jersey.

 

The peloton managed to reduce their deficit to just 12 seconds, with Kristoff taking the expected sprint win for third. Hence, the GC is still wide open as the riders head into tomorrow's queen stage.

 

The first part of the third stage is mostly flat but it gets significantly more complicated in the finale. The riders will go up to big climbs, with the final one leading to the line in the first ever summit finish at the Tour of Norway.

 

A flat, windy stage

After yesterday's stage which finished with a tough uphill sprint, the riders continued with a 195km second stage from Drøbak to Sarpsborg that was again expected to suit the strongest among the sprinters. The course was rolling but with only one categorized climb, it should do little to challenge the sprinters. The stage ended with 3 laps of a 7km finishing circuit that had a slightly uphill finishing straight. However, the finale was not expected to be as hard as the one from yesterday.

 

After yesterday's rainy day, the riders were pleased to get their stage underway under a beautiful sunny sky but a strong wind threatened to wreak havoc on the peloton. Petr Ignatenko (Katusha) was the only non-starter, the Russian having broken his collarbone in a crash on the wet roads in yesterday's finale.

 

The break takes off

Like yesterday, the many local continental teams wanted to be part of the early action and so it was no surprise that the stage got off to a very fast start before the break was finally former. When the elastic snapped, 6 riders took off as Preben Van Hecke (Topsport), Adrian Kurek (CCC), Johann Van Zyl (MTN-Qhubeka), Trond Trondsen (Frøy), Sondre-Gjerdevik Sørtveit (FixIT) and August Jensen (Øster Hus) started to build up a gap.

 

Katusha took immediate control of the peloton and only allowed the advantage to grow very slowly. At the 13km mark, it was 1.10 and 11km further up the road, the leaders were 3.50 ahead.

 

Van Hecke wins the sprint

That was as much as they would get though and Katusha started to stabilize the gap around the 4-minute mark. Van Hecke attacked his companions to win the first intermediate sprint, with Trondsen and Jensen taking the minor positions. At that point, the gap was 3.20.

 

Katusha were riding too fast and had the gap down to 2.40 already after 48km of racing. They allowed it to grow back up to 3.45 but Aliaksandr Kuschynski and Gatis Smukulis always had the situation under control for the Russian team.

 

Jensen takes the mountains jersey

On the day's only climb, Jensen beat Van Hecke, Sørtveit and Trondsen in the sprint for maximum points to draw equal with previous leader Adrian Gjølberg. At that point the gap was 3.30 but as the windy conditions started to make the peloton nervous, the advantage came down.

 

With 45km to go, it was only 1.02 but at that point Belkin and Tinkoff-Saxo tried to split things in the crosswinds. As a consequence, the break was caught with 40km still to race.

 

Kristoff is isolated

The action from Belkin and Tinkoff-Saxo failed to put Kristoff under pressure but the Norwegian lost most of his teammates as several riders dropped off. As they entered a less windy section, things calmed down a bit until Belkin took control to lead out Bauke Mollema for the intermediate sprint.

 

The Dutchman was beaten into second by Tom Van Asbroeck (Topsport) whose teammate Zico Waeytens was third. Having done the sprint, the big teams took a short breather and this opened the door for a lot of aggression.

 

De Maar and Paterski launch their move

Several different groups were formed at different point but when the dust had settled 28km from the line, it was De Maar and Paterski that emerged on the front. Behind an 11-rider chase group with Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin), Eliot Lietaer (Topsport), Jan Ghyselinck (Wanty), Angel Madrazo (Caja Rural), Oysten Stake Laengen (Motiv3), Vegard Robinson Bugge (Joker Merida), Stian Remme (FixIT), Magnus Børresen (Øster Hus), Marcus Karlsson (Ringeriks), Amund Jansen (Sparebanken), and Jonathan Fumeaux (IAM) had formed.

 

While the front duo cooperated excellently, those riders failed to work together and the gap started to widen. With 24km to go, the leaders were 15 seconds ahead while the peloton was already 40 seconds behind.

 

Tinkoff-Saxo lead the chase

Tinkoff-Saxo was the only major team to have missed out and they hit the front to try to bring things back under control. However, they kept losing time and at the first passage of the line, they were 58 seconds behind the leader and 38 seconds behind the chasers.

 

The chase didn't have any effect and at the completion of the first lack, they were more than a minute behind. The chasers kept attacking each other and were now 32 seconds behind.

 

Baugnies and Ghyselinck attack

Jerome Baugnies (Wanty) attacked from the peloton and did a good job to bridge the gap to the chasers. Meanwhile, the attacking in that group continued, with Ghsyelinck finally being the one to get away

 

Belkin realized that they were about to throw away the GC and so hit the front of the peloton, gradually reducing the gap. Stef Clement took some massive turns on the front and finally the peloton started to get closer.

 

The chasers disintegrate

The attacking in the chase group continued and it finally disintegrated completely when Madrazo took off in pursuit of Ghyselinck. Vanmarcke tried to join him while the rest of the group was swallowed up.

 

Up ahead, De Maar was riding for GC and he kept the speed high almost all the way to the finish. After leading for more than a kilometre, he finally slowed down a bit before launching his sprint from the front. Paterski got close but in photo finish, the UnitedHealthCare rider took the win.

 

Belkin had brought back all chasers and 12 seconds later it was Kristoff who led the main group across the line to take third.