By attacking in the crosswinds, Tinkoff-Saxo tried to take the initiative in yesterday's second stage of the Tour of Norway but when the dust had settled the team found itself on the back foot as it was the only major team - in addition to a worn-out Katusha - that had missed the two moves. Hence, the team was forced into chase mode and managed to reduce their time loss sufficiently to keep their GC options open.

It was an exciting day in Norway during today’s 193 kilometer long second stage of Tour of Norway from Drøbak to Sarpsborg where a hilly circuit concluded today’s course.

As a breakaway threatened to take it all, different teams including Tinkoff-Saxo joined forces at the front of the pack to start reeling in the two front riders and the chasing group in between but Maciej Paterski (CCC Polsat) and Marc De Maar (UnitedHealthCare) formed an extremely powerful tandem and made it to the finish line. With 250 meters to go, De Maar opened the sprint uphill and denied Paterski to go past him with just a few centimeters.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Marko Kump finished 6th in the bunch sprint:

“It was a really hectic start of the stage with a lot of crosswinds and all of a sudden we had a rather big breakaway and we weren’t there, which is a little disappointing. That also meant we had to work in the final part of the stage to narrow the gap down to a minimum in order to keep both Beltran and Jesper inside the GC fortunately, we managed to do that. Tomorrow’s stage will be a little tougher than today and it might reveal weaknesses in the top of the GC,” commented DS, Tristan Hoffman.