The final stage in the Tour des Fjords continued right where stage four left off with more punishing steep climbs in a tough finishing circuit, and when the dust settled after another fast stage the leader’s jersey changed shoulders one last time.

Team Katusha had the last say after losing the leader’s jersey Saturday to Søren Kragh Andersen (Trefor-Blue Water), as Marco Haller grabbed the overall win Sunday after breaking away with three others in the closing kilometers. 

The four men arrived at the finish together where Edvald Boasson-Hagen (MTN Qhubeka) took the stage victory and Haller’s third place was enough to steal the overall victory from Andersen, who dropped to second.

Jasper Stuyven won the sprint from the peloton that arrived 15 seconds behind the quartet, to take fifth place. Stuyven was also highest placed in the GC at 20th.

It was tough five days in Norway with a leg-breaking undulating parcours each day and cold temperatures and rain for the first three stages. Trek Factory Racing battled hard under the tough conditions, but in the end came away empty handed. 

Although a victory was the goal, it was not for lack of trying, explained director Dirk Demol:

“Today was another very hard day with two steep climbs in the circuits and the four strongest in the race came to the finish together. Danny [van Poppel] was still not recovered from yesterday, and Jasper did very well to win the sprint from the bunch of only 30-40 riders at the end.

“I have to say it was a very hard race and our condition was not quite good enough to be there with the top guys. Fabian [Cancellara] is just coming back from injury and a few others are returning after a period of rest and are still building up for the next month, but we were in the game every day, we tried. We were of course hoping for a win, but it did not work out how we hoped.”