Ethan Hayter timed his sprint to perfection to win stage two of the Tour of Norway ahead of Mike Teunissen and Tobias Joohannessen.
The 123 kilometer long stage between Ulvik and Geilo featured a long ascent which saw several sprinters getting dropped. With no ascent, just a constant plateau all the way into the finish, the wind also carved through the peloton and saw a group of just over 20 riders head into the final kilometers ahead.
Hayter won the reduced bunch sprint and he now moves up to second overall, just one second behind race leader Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl).
“It’s incredible. To keep winning races is so nice and I owe that one to my teammates”, said Hayter.
“We knew it could be windy and actually the snowbanks were making a lot of shelter. We knew a few guys were sat at the back and we thought we’d try (split the race). It was good fun!
“We did our homework before as riders and we thought this could be a nice moment to go if it hadn’t already gone on the climb. It was quite a small group in the end, so we made some time for GC.”
