Alexander Kristoff again proved that he is no pure sprinter when he finished 10th in the very hard opening stage of the Arctic Race of Norway. The Norwegian will now try to take a stage win in tomorrow's sprint stage.

The second edition of the Arctic Race of Norway started the first of four stages on Thursday with stage 1 ending in North Cape, the furthest northern point a bike race has ever ended. Team rider Simon Špilak was active in the finish while teammate Alexander Kristoff took tenth on the stage behind solo winner Nordhaug. Alex’s high placing on the general classification is a good start to this difficult race on his native soil.

"Today’s stage was hard and our main rider for today was Simon Spilak. On the final climb he did a good attack to follow Nordhaug. It looked like they had some advantage, but then a group of 6 – 8 riders caught them. There was a strong side wind at that point in the stage and in a brief moment Simon lost contact with that group. We still have two stages for the sprinters – tomorrow and then on the last day – so we will try to help Alex Kristoff. Also we will have a stage with an uphill finish on Saturday so Simon will try to attack there once again," said team director Dmitry Konyshev.

Friday’s stage 2 moves inland with a start in Honningsvåg and a finish in Alta after 207 km.