Atrocious weather conditions played a crucial role in today’s second stage at the Glava Tour of Norway as the organizers were forced due reduce the distance by 11km by cancelling a round-trip in the city of Skien.

In a repeat of yesterday’s performance, Katusha’s Alexander Kristoff once again handily defeated Team Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen in the decisive sprint.

After the initial skirmishes, a breakaway group, predictably, broke clear, consisting of Michael Reihs (Team CULT Energy), Sander Cordeel (Lotto-Belisol), Thomas Degand (Accent Jobs - Wanty), Javier Armendia (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), Laurens de Vreese (Topsport Vlaanderen), Stijn Neirynck (Topsport Vlaandeen - Baloise) and Filip Eidsheim (Øster Hus - Ridley). Topping at two and a half minutes, the lead meant that Michael Reihs had assumed the virtual overall lead of the race. Predictably, however, the group was unable to maintain their lead and began to dissolve as the peloton upped the pace as the sprinters’ teams began to set up the stage for yet another sprint decision.  

For a second successive day Kristoff proved irresistible in the dash for the line, clearly outsprinting Boasson Hagen and leaving no room for doubt as to the outcome.

"Today it was a hard stage,” said Kristoff. “It was a really bad rain all day long and the organizing body of 'Glava Tour of Norway' decided to shorten the course by 11km, so it became very difficult and hectic. Anyways, the team worked great: first we controlled the breakaway with Smukulis and Kritskiy, then again our train was perfect with Selig, Haller and Porsev. In the end I was a bit afraid of crashes, because there was a very sharp corner a few hundred metres before the finish line, everybody was full gas for the final rush and the road was slippery, but fortunately we avoided it.”

“I was in the best position, so I kept a perfect trajectory and won. I'm very happy about this second win, which allows me to enforce my leadership. It will be hard to keep it until the end [because] the fourth stage is for climbers and the fifth looks like a Classic. Still, I'm not in my best shape and I suffer a little during the uphill parts. But anyways, tomorrow it will be another sprinters’ stage, so I'll try to get another victory and if I won’t be able to defend my leadership during the competition, we have Sergey Chernetckii, a young talented Russian rider that can do a good job in climbers’ stages."

Result, stage 2:
1 Alexander Kristoff - Katusha
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen - Team Sky
3 Sondre Holst Enger - Team Plussbank
4 Evaldas Siskevicius - Sojasun
5 Sven Vandousselaere - Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise
6 Marko Kump - Team Saxo - Tinkoff
7 Tom Van Asbroeck - Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise
8 Andreas Stauff - MTN Qhubeka
9 Matteo Pelucchi - IAM Cycling
10 Frederique Robet - Lotto-Belisol

General classification:
1 Alexander Kristoff - Katusha
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen - Team Sky
3 Michael Reihs - Team CULT Energy