Alexander Kristoff

[15] The following year, he took his first victory with the team, winning the Norwegian National Road Race Championships title for the second time,[16] and entered his first Grand Tour – the Giro d'Italia, finishing third on stage eight.[25] The following year, Kristoff led home the chase group at March's Milan–San Remo, finishing in eighth place for his first top-ten cycling monument result.[33] After losing out to Thor Hushovd in the Norwegian National Road Race Championships,[34] Kristoff then competed in his first Tour de France, placing second on the opening stage.His final notable result of the year was a third-place finish at the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Germany, behind home riders John Degenkolb and André Greipel.He then followed this up with second overall at the Arctic Race of Norway, along with two stage wins and the points classification,[52] and a bunch sprint victory at the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg.[62] At the Three Days of De Panne, he won the opening stage from a six-man breakaway, having been led out in the sprint by teammate Sven Erik Bystrøm.[73][74] He then took two further victories in Switzerland in June, winning both the Grand Prix of Aargau Canton and the seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse in bunch sprints.[82] He then took a further two stage victories at the Tour of Oman,[83][84] before a second consecutive runner-up finish at Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, leading home the main field behind the solo winner Jasper Stuyven.[87] He was unable to defend his title at the Tour of Flanders, leading home a small group of riders in fourth position,[88] before taking another win at the Eschborn–Frankfurt – Rund um den Finanzplatz one-day race, held at the start of May.[91][92] He won the opening stage of the Arctic Race of Norway for the second year in succession,[93] before he led home the main field at the Bretagne Classic Ouest-France, finishing third behind Oliver Naesen and Alberto Bettiol.[105] He took his first victory in the European champion's jersey at the Arctic Race of Norway, when he won the second stage, which finished on the runway at Bardufoss Airport, in a bunch sprint.At the Tour de France, Kristoff avoided all the crashes on the opening stage and won the final sprint in Nice, to take the yellow jersey,[135] becoming the second Norwegian to do so after Thor Hushovd.[145] He then finished third in Milano–Torino,[146] tenth at the Tour of Flanders,[147] before a second win of the season at the Scheldeprijs – taking a solo victory, having attacked within the last 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) of the race.[157] Kristoff started the season in Iberia, finishing fourth in the Clásica de Almería, before taking his first victory with the team, winning a bunch sprint on the opening stage of the Volta ao Algarve in Lagos.[161] Kristoff started the 2024 season with a second-place finish to Gerben Thijssen in the Trofeo Palma in January, held as part of the Vuelta a Mallorca one-day races.[165] A third Belgian one-day victory of 2024 came for Kristoff at the Heistse Pijl at the start of June, before he won the first two stages of the Arctic Race of Norway in August.