Another great performance for Alexander Kristoff in the UCI Europe Tour competition “GP de Fourmies”: the Norwegian rider took the second position in the final rush, confirming the same result as in 2011. The crucial moment happened in the last moments of the stage: Oscar Freire, Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol) and Michal Morkov (Saxo Bank - Tinkoff) were the only one from the breakaway to resist to the chase of the group. When the group was close enough, Bak tried the blitz: he managed to leave the others ahead and to win for just 1” over the main group, whose sprint was taken by Kristoff over Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano).
“It was a good day for us – said the Norwegian rider – after yesterday’s third place with Freire we managed to take another podium and that’s a good thing. The team did a very good job in the last sprint, and they managed to put me in the best position: we passed Oscar in the last meters, but Bak was too far to catch. It’s a pity, maybe with 50 more meters I could have won: but that’s cycling, and I can be satisfied with this performance and this podium”.