Mathieu van der Poel continued his winning streak in road racing four months after he last competed and bagged the Amstel Gold Race.
The Dutchman powered to victory from a 33-man leading group that contested stage 1 of the Arctic Race of Norway. His switch from mountain-biking has been impressive again.
Van der Poel topped Danny van Poppel (Jumbo-Visma) and Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty-Gobert) after 181 kilometers of racing from Å to Leknes.
“It was a very hard race, and the pace never really dropped”, said Van der Poel. “When I looked at my screen after three hours, the average pace was still 50km so it was full gas all day. I kind of like it like that.
“I was just waiting and trying to time my sprint perfectly, and I think I did that. It’s going to be very hard to defend the jersey but we’ll see.”
Arctic Race of Norway 2019 – stage 1 results (Å – Leknes):
| 1 | Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) |
3:45:14 |
| 2 | Danny van Poppel (Jumbo-Visma) |
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| 3 | Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty-Gobert) |
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| 4 | Benjamin Declercq (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) |
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| 5 | Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy) |
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| 6 | Jordi Warlop (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) |
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| 7 | Enrico Gasparotto (Dimension Data) |
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| 8 | Markus Hoelgaard (Uno-X) |
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| 9 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) |
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| 10 | Franck Bonnamour (Arkéa Samsic) |
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Arctic Race of Norway 2019 – general classification after stage 1:
| 1 | Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) |
3:45:14 |
| 2 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) |
+03” |
| 3 | Danny van Poppel (Jumbo-Visma) |
+04” |
| 4 | Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty-Gobert) |
+05” |
| 5 | Markus Hoelgaard (Uno-X) |
+06” |
| 6 | Amund Grøndahl Jansen (Jumbo-Visma) |
+07” |
| 7 | Magnus Cort (Astana) |
+08” |
| 8 | Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy) |
+09” |
| 9 | Benjamin Declercq (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) |
+10” |
| 10 | Jordi Warlop (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) |
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