Today’s fifth and final 175 kilometer long stage of Tour of Norway took the peloton from Flå to Hønefoss after circling an undulating lap around the finish town. Three Norwegian escapees stole some time in the sun forming the breakaway before the real finale set in and the Katusha team were very active on the front of the pack aiming to bring the escapees back for Alexander Kristoff. But ultimately, they did not succeed.

Setting out on the final lap with 12 kilometers to go, the gap was still one minute but the breakaway riders kept pushing the pace and in the final kilometers, it could go either way as the GC favorites started to attack on the short uphill finish. But it was too late. Andreas Vangstad (Sparebanken Sor) managed to keep everyone behind to take a rather sensational victory.

CULT Energy Pro Cycling’s Rasmus Guldhammer finished 5th in this final stage, Gustav Larsson finished 9th overall while CULT Energy won the teams classification.

“I think we have performed well in Tour of Norway and our overall win in the team classification is what I’m most proud of. Rasmus finished 5th, Linus 11th and even though Gustav lost a few seconds, he still retains a spot in the top-10 overall. This bodes for more and I’m looking forward to Tour de Fjords next week where we’ll see Rasmus highly motivated once again,” says DS Michael Skelde.

Jesper Hansen (Tinkoff-Saxo) won the race overall.