Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) continued his fantastic 2014 season when the strong Norwegian won the first stage his home race, the Tour of Norway, for the second year in a row. In a tough uphill sprint, he used teammate Marco Haller to keep Lars Petter Nordhaug under control before launching a powerful effort that allowed him to easily hold off Sondre Holst Enger (Sparebanken) and Tom Van Asbroeck (Topsport Vlaanderen).

Alexander Kristoff has a fantastic classics campaign but the big Norwegian has certainly not rested on his laurels since his successful outing in the one-day races. Today he did his first race for almost three weeks and he found straight back to his winning ways when he emerged as the strongest in the first stage of the Tour of Norway.

The mostly flat stage had a tricky finale as a short, little climb led onto the slightly uphill finishing straight and it was expected to put the sprinters at their limit. However, Kristoff was confident in his chances and asked his Katusha team to control the 7-rider break for most of the day.

In the finale, he faced a dangerous situation when Lars Petter Nordhaug (Belkin) attacked on the final climb but he made use of fantastic work by his teammate Marco Haller to keep the Norwegian under control. When they turned onto the finishing straight, the Belkin rider was back in the fold and Kristoff was in a perfect position.

Haller still had the energy to do a great lead-out and then Kristoff powered down the middle of the road. Young local talent Sondre Holst Enger briefly seemed to challenge the Milan-Sanremo winner but as the going got tough, the youngster started to fade.

As opposed to this, Kristoff kept going all the way to the line and he took a very convincing win ahead of Enger while Tom Van Asbroeck crossed the line in third. A strong Nordhaugh held onto fourth to prove that he is ready to contend for the overall victory.

With the win, Kristoff takes the first leader's jersey of the race and he leads Enger and Ruben Fernandez (Caja Rural) who scored bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints, by four seconds ahead of tomorrow's second stage. It is another mostly flat stage but again it's a tough finale as the sprint will be uphill.

One for the sprinters

As per tradition, the 3rd Tour of Norway kicked off with a stage that seemed to be destined to end in a bunch sprint. The short 148km route started and finished in Larvik and despite the inclusion of the first categorized climb of the race just after the 30km mark, the flat terrain offered very few challenges. Late in the stage the riders did three laps of a rolling 20.8km circuit near Larvik before doing the final 6.1km back to the uphill finish in the city.

As it is almost a tradition in the Tour of Norway, the riders took off in rainy weather conditions The many local continental teams were keen to be part of the action and rode very aggressively in the opening part of the race.

The break takes off

At the 4km mark, Adrian Kurek (CCC), Ruben Fernandez (Caja Rural), Davide Frattini (UnitedHealthCare), Oysten Stake Laengen (Motiv3), Arian Gjölberg (FixIT) and Krister Hagen (Oster Hus) took off and at the 8km mark, they were 27 seconds ahead. However, the gap only grew very slowly and when Fernandez beat Frattini and Gjølberg in the first sprint, they were still only 35 seconds ahead.

That's when the peloton decided to slow down and when Gjølberg took the first mountains jersey by beating Hagen and Fernandez in the KOM sprint at the 33km mark, they were 2.30 ahead. Impressively, Eliot Lietaer (Topsport Vlaanderen) bridged the gap to make it a rather big 7-rider group for the sprint teams to control.

Katusha take control

Katusha quickly assumed their position on the front of the peloton, with a single rider from the Russian team setting the pace. At this point, however, the gap was 4.25 but that was as much as they would get.

Kurek briefly punctured out of the lead group but while he rejoined the move, Katusha started to bring down the gap. At the 67km mark, it was 3.20 and 13km further up the road it was only 2.05.

Belkin join Katusha

Ferekalsi Debesay (MTN), Johann Van Zyl (MTN) and Thomas Degand (Wanty) chased back to the peloton after a crash while Tinkoff-Saxo decided to lend Katusha a hand. They quickly disappeared though but soon after Belkin joined the Russians on the front of the peloton. Unfortunately, Debesay was forced to abandon the race after 100km of racing

The gap was kept stable at around 2 minutes but when Katusha and Belkin got assistance from the Joker-Merida team, the advantage started to melt away. The three teams had brought it down to 1.15 40km from the line.

More seconds for Fernandez

Fernandez beat Frattini and Lietaer in the second intermediate sprint while Stef Clement took some massive turns for Belkin in the peloton. The peloton now slowed down a bit and allowed the gap to hover around the 1.30 mark.

With 26km to go, the gap was down to just 50 seconds as Joker, Katusha and Belkin were still at the head of affairs. With 20km to go, it was just 32 seconds and as the break got into sight of the bunch, the attacks started to fly.

The break splits up

Stake Laengen made a move with 14km to go and only Kurek, Frattini and Hagen could keep up with him. Fernandez, Lietaer and Gjølberg were all caught by the peloton.

With 8km to go, a crash brought down Sebastien Reichenbach and Kristoffer Sommer Wormsen (Ringeriks) but both got back on their bikes. Moments later, a big turn by Clement brought the break back.

CCC hit the front

With Kurek back in the fold, CCC went straight to the front with most of their team and the Polish swuad remained in control for most of the finale. Behind them, the sprint trains of Katusha, Belkin and Topsport started to get organized.

With 2km to go, they were passed by the Belkin pair of Barry Markus and Lars-Petter Nordhaug who were keen to set up the Norwegian in the uphill sprint. Local talent Sondre Holst Enger was attentive and got onto the wheel of the dup while Kristoff was with Marco Haller a little further back.

Nordhaug makes his move

Markus led the peloton under the flamme rouge but as he went too slow in a turn onto the final small rise, he was passed by a rider from a local team that got a nice gap. Nordhaug put down the hammer as soon as the road pointed upwards and easily passed the lone leader.

Behind, Haller did a fantastic job to close the move down and despite Nordhaug's attempt to ride hard all the way to the top, the Austrian kept him under control. As they turned onto the flat finishing straight, Haller hit the front and kept the pace high until Kristoff launched his winning sprint.