Ladies Tour of Norway wish you a Merry Christmas!
– and Ladies Tour of Norway is also this year among all the great races in the calendar!
The UCI Women’s WorldTour is the world’s leading series of races for professional women cyclists. Replacing the former UCI Women Road World Cup, which was held from 1998 to 2015, the UCI Women’s WorldTour was established to accommodate the fast growth of women’s cycling and accompany it into the future.
The varied calendar includes spring classics early in the season, exciting stage races held worldwide and monument races that are often attached to men’s UCI WorldTour events. The culmination is the UCI Road World Championships held towards the end of the season.
See the teaser for the WWT-calendar here
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The Organizing Committee of Ladies Tour of Norway recently had their evaluation meeting for this year’s event. We presented and discussed all the positive things, and we also found something which can be done better next year. And luckily there is always something to improve and learn from:)
Something that was also presented at the meeting is that two of the staff in the organization committee will resign after this year’s event. Our Course- and Safety manager Jon Olav Ødegård and Technical Director Sondre Gjerdesvik Sørtveit are now unfortunately leaving the organization. Most of the work which is done for Ladies Tour of Norway is based on voluntary basis, and the ever increasing workload for these two functions, it is now unfortunately impossible for Sondre and Jon Olav to combine this with their regular jobs any longer.
It is of course very sad for Ladies Tour of Norway that we will lose two incredibly knowledgeable, skilled, reliable, and bottom-solid men like them. But fortunately, they both leave behind some very good basic data and information material about their functions, so their successors will have a very good starting point for continuing the goodw work.
We thank you both for an amazing time together for Ladies Tour of Norway, and hope sometimes we can take advantage of your knowledge again!
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Marianne Vos (WM3) managed to control all the attacks on the final laps of the Ladies Tour of Norway in Halden and she secured the overall victory after a 3rd place in the sprint. But former winner of the race Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans) took the sprint and the stage victory just ahead of Ellen Van Dijk (Sunweb).
Those three riders were also the podium on the GC, with Marianne Vos winning 13 seconds ahead of both Guarnier in second and Van Dijk in third. Vos took bonus seconds on the two first intermediate sprints and extended her lead.
The last stage of 158,6 km was the longest of the race and the riders were twice on Swedish roads. The second time in Sweden a trio managed to break clear. Lithuanian champion Daiva Tuslaite (Alé-Cipollini), Lisen Hockings (Australia) and Ingrid Moe (Norway) managed to get a gap of over 3 minutes on the main field, but when WM3 started to work they were caught. Tuslaite got some mechanical problems as well.
Rachel Neylan (Orica-Scott) attacked on the outskirts of Halden before the four final laps of 5,1 km each. She managed to stay away untill the penultimate lap. A counterattack from Ellen Van Dijk was the most dangerous and Vos had to work really hard on the last lap to catch her fellow Dutch rider.
In the sprint they were both up there, but the former American champion Megan Guarnier had the best sprint and took the stage ahead of Van Dijk and Vos.
21 riders finished in the first group. Marianne Vos also won the green points jersey, while another Dutch rider, Jannecke Ensing (Alé-Cipollini) finised of in style to take the mountains jersey ahead of Rosella Ratto (Cylance).
German champion Lisa Klein (Cervelo-Bigla) was the best young rider, while Susanne Andersen (Hitec Products) got the jersey as the best Norwegian rider. A special borderprize for the first rider into Norway the last time went to Daiva Tuslaite.
Team Sunweb won the team competition. The last stage of the first ever World Tour-race in Norway was seen by a great crowd in Halden and one of the spectators was UCI president Bryan Cookson.
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Marius Jørgensen is the man with full control of all the signs for the Ladies Tour of Norway. With two full trucks and a lot of helpers he is a very important man in the organisation as the area manager.
And Marius is good – so good that he also has the same job also at the World championships in Bergen i September.
– In Bergen will need more than 40 km of fences to cover the courses. That will fill three big ferrys from Fjord Line bringing them from Denmark, says Marius, who is originally from mid-Norway, but is now based in Asker just outside Oslo.
This week the focus is on the Ladies Tour of Norway and during Wednesday evening all the material arrived in Halden – signs, stages, trucks, etc.
But for Marius Jørgensen the job started several months ago. He has been controlling the start- and finishing areas several tmes. And it’s not only about signs, but also electricity, internet and parking possibilites. Today there are a lot of things you need to fix to have such a big event as a World Tour-race.
After last years LToN Marius took a chance and quit his normal job to as the ”general of the signs” in Østfold and Bergen. Now he hopes that this work will give him more oppotunities in the future.
And the result will be good, we’re confident in that. Marius Jørgensen is a man who puts his soul in doing everything a little better than everybody else – he wants people to remember the events where he was responsible for rigging the venue.
But there is no use trying to call Marius to next four days. He is working around the clock and it’s good that nobody really checks how many hours he and his crew are hands on this week. They’re probably breaking all laws regarding what is allowed to work…
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Four riders had nearly 30 seconds lead on the last 7,4 km lap in the center of Fredrikstad when a sudden bridge-opening suddenly stopped the whole race and destroyed the final on the 2nd stage of the Ladies Tour of Norway, 140 km between Sarpsborg and Fredrikstad.
A very unlucky episode, but there was anyway a tough sprint where Chloe Hoskings (Alé-Cipollini) just edged out Marianne Vos (WM3) to take the stage. Vos took the yellow jersey.
The reason for the unexpected opening of the bridge is accorinding to the race directors several unlucky happenings. The bridge is opened automaticlly from an office in Oslo. The boats are calling a number to open it, but because of the race the bridge was closed till 18,00 o’clock.
Todays stage was slower than expected because of a lot of wing. 15 seconds past 18,00 the riders came to the bridge for the last time and they got the red light and had to stop. The reason is obviously that there was a new person on the office in Oslo controlling the bridge, and he hadn’t got the information about the race and nobody checked the live videos from the bridge.
Lost the lead
The four leading riders had a gap of less than 30 seconds and the commisaires did use the rules and let everybody start together again for the last 5 kilometers.
The four leading riders at this point were Katarzyna Pawlowska (Boels-Doelmans), Mieke Kröger (Canyon SRAM), Leah Kirchmann (Team Sunweb) and Rosella Ratto (Cylance).
Kröger was a treath to the overall lead and she now lost the chance to be in the yellow jersey after two stages.
Instead it was the big sprinters who used the last 5 kilometers to fight it out for the stage win. Chloe Hoskings was brought to a perfect position on the final straight and could just edge out Marianne Vos, who had been active the whole way and was already in the overall lead.
Prologue winner Ellen Van Dijk (Team Sunweb) was third and is still in the fight for the total victory.
In the climbing competition Jannecke Ensing (Alé-Cipollini) took the polkadot jersy, but Rosella Ratto has equal points in front of Sundays final stage. The German champion Lisa Klein (Cervelo-Bigla) kept the lead in the best young rider competition while Susanne Andersen (Hitec Products) is still the best Norwegian rider. Most aggresive rider was voted Italian Silvia Valchecchi (Bepink-Cogeas) after a long solobreak early on the stage.
Marianne Vos is also leading the fight for the green points jersey.
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Cloe Hoskings, Ale Cippolini won the dramatic 2nd. stage of the Ladies Tour of Norway, followd by Marianne Vos, WM3 and Ellen Van Dijk, Team Sunweb.
Marianne Vos the took over the lead.
You will find complete results here:
Further informations and pictures will follow..