Lutsenko in attack, most aggressive rider in Arctic Race of Norway Stage 1
At the end of the day Lutsenko finished 9th insprint, but thanks to 7 bonus seconds, won at the intermediate sprints he movedup to the 2nd position in the general classification, just 3 seconds behindMathieu Van der Poel, who won stage 1.
«I am happy with the way I didthis stage as I tried my best and almost everything, we planned for today, weachieved. The team was super strong today and I thank my teammates for a greatsupport. I feel myself in a good form, so let’s see what we can do in the nextstages,» said AlexeyLutsenko.
«I think we did a good race withall team. It was our plan to fight for bonus seconds and Alexey Lutsenko showedhis legs today in the best possible way. Hugo Houle and Magnus Cort worked verywell to protect Lutsenko and to help him win some seconds. Alexey did a fewstrong attacks; in a moment he went away in a group of 4 riders. It was a goodmove, but the group caught them back. Anyway, after the finish Alexey won aprize as the most aggressive rider, now he is second in GC and we are lookingforward to the next days,» said DmitriyFofonov, sports manager of Astana Pro Team.
The Arctic Race of Norway started Friday withstage 1 from Å to Leknes of 181 km. The stage exploded with attack of AlexeyLutsenko with around 30 km to go. For several times the Kazakh champion triedto animate the race and to avoid a bunch sprint. However, everything ended witha sprint from a reduced group of leaders, won by Van der Poel.
Stage 2 of the race will be held Aug 16: 164 kmfrom Henningsvaer to Svolvaer.