The 13th edition of the Arctic Race of Norway took the riders on the opening stage between Evenes and Myre on a 181.9km route featuring three classified climbs. Giovanni Lonardi (Polti VisitMalta) stunned the sprinters and found the opening to win the opening stage. The Italian was fastest in the bunch sprint, Jason Tesson (TotalEnergies) and Canadian Riley Pickrell (Modern Adventure Pro Cycling).
“I think that I’m in good shape. In the Tour of Denmark last week I tried to win, but I don’t have the best feeling this year to try to do a sprint like this, but we did everything good today and I win.”
-Giovanni Lonardi
“It’s kind of funny because I’ve won as a stagiaire, and then I raced down with the Devo Team, and I won one there, and it’s really nice to win with the NSN jersey in the WorldTour team finally and get that real victory here.
I’ll try and hang on for dear life, I think. It was a good sprint for me today, and maybe tomorrow is another opportunity. It’s not the hardest climb, just hard in the final, and if I can hang on for a short climb, it could be good. But we’re here with Jan Hirt and he’s in his home country. He’s flying, he’s a super strong guy, and we believe in him.”
-Riley Sheehan victorious in stage 1 of the Czech Tour.
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