Rider Nearly Crashes Through Barriers in Sprint | Arctic Race of Norway 2026 Stage 1

Scary crash in the opening stage of Arctic Race of Norway. We've got two really steep uphill finishes in this race. One's like 4k's 11%, but today we have a sprint stage to kick things off. We've got Ethan Vernon, probably is the stage favorite for NSN Cycling Team. Lonardi's a very consistent good sprinter on Polty Visit Malta. We also have Pickerel on Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. Blikra on UNO-X, who's been good in these sort of top pro easy stages like Oman. And at Lotto Intermarsial, I didn't know who they would go for, whether it would be for Cochleman, the Luxembourger who won in a Tour of Luxembourg last year when he was on the Devo team, or Lionel Tamanyo, who's a bit more experienced. In the breakaway we had five riders, Vukuja in there for Flanders-Balwaza. I read the news last week that that team is stopping. That's real shame. That's such a good team in the cycling ecosystem for Belgian riders who haven't had that U23 junior sparkling career, and then they need a little bit more time. Some riders just need a little bit more time. Not everybody is that 18-year-old phenom. Not everybody is riding your bike 20 hours a week when you're 19 years old. Maybe you've got other things you like doing. I know I like doing other things compared to that. And probably it's a good thing to do other things compared to riding your bike 1,000 hours a year when you're 18 years old. Life's got a lot of things to offer. In the breakaway we had the Lucky team already represented, and Morten van Baksas was going for the KOM sprints. They actually bridged two extra riders across. They were good in Klassiker High End. They had one of their lads run top 20, I think, in Klassiker High End, which was pretty impressive. One of their younger riders. They're a Swedish Conti team. They made the break bigger, but it wasn't able to get any margin. It was 15 seconds with seven k's to go. They were allowed to just make it to the last lap of the finish line in Myra with six k's to go. They took the intermediate sprint points there, but the peloton pretty much had them in their sights, and we had three k's to go. Them caught well under control. Probably needed a few more hills. You can have these stages like Tour of Norway Stage 1 last year, which Inge Britsen won from the breakaway when Wismar were chasing. You just need a little bit more hills and a bit more crosswind, maybe some bad weather and a circuit, and you can win from the breakaway in these stages. But it was on the right. I think they are eating a bit of crosswind. Lotto Intermarche in good position on the left-hand side is Total Energies. They're all riding a big gear, so maybe they were going into a bit of a headwind with two k's to go, especially when you look at the speed. Here you see Vernon try to move up himself. He never really, like, he abandoned his lead out, I would say, Vernon. I think where he was with his lead out was the good spot behind Total on the bottom left, and he just needed to let them in front of him, and the space would open up inside. So I think he just needed to wait there, but Vernon moves a right. He moves across. I think he's trying to get to the other rider in front of him, but the other two guys never get across or back to his back wheel, and he, yeah, he starts just moving right and gets washed right. The left side with Total, they had it perfectly dialed. Modern Adventure start to move up with Cordell on the right-hand side for Pickerel. We then see NSN actually stretch it, but now Vernon's on the wrong side. Van Uden's with three teammates behind for Picnic Post NL, and in fact it's, like I said, Jason Tesson, who's a very small sprinter, and Lorenzo Marzin on Total Energies. They're going to find the opening on that left-hand side, but Vernon's on the right here, as you can see. He's trying to find the exit to the right, but he's got no teammates around him. They're stuck back left where he was when he scooted up the left-hand side. Blicker is being brought up the open side, but he's just got one man with him, and it's okay to go, and Vernon's just looking for the exit. He keeps getting boxed in by the Unibet guys. He finds the exit here. He's going to go to the right of the Astana rider, and it stretches left. Holti is already stretching it left now. They've hit the gas for Lonardi as Vernon's moving up the right-hand side with pace, so Vernon spent his sprint with about 800 meters to go, I would say, and here Marzin's waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, sprints left. I'll show it better in the overhead. I think it was Paul Henneken is moving up. It cuts camera angle, but actually the Modern Adventure Pro Cycling rider follows Marzin, and the Yuskutel rider gets pushed into the barriers, and he goes through the barriers, but Marzin does a fantastic lead out just a little bit early, but he had to find the opening on the inside, which was going to shut eventually. Tesson launches with 190 meters to go. Lonardi on his wheel. Tesson keeps his line, opens the space to the inside, and Lonardi wins the sprint ahead of him. Vernon had to sit down. Here's the overhead, and it cuts, as I said, so you don't see the full picture, but we can probably figure out what happened. The Modern Adventure rider takes the wheel of Marzin and then gets, the Yuskutel rider gets bumped. It's pretty scary. I mean, he gets bounced back in. I hope he's okay, but if the barriers let him through and didn't bounce him back in, there's that metal pole he might have hit, and who knows what would have happened, so thankfully, the barriers kept him inside. Nikiforos Arvanitou, he is a trainee. He's in the Greek Natty Champs jersey on Astana. He's on the right-hand side. Just watch out for him if we have another sprint. He's a good sprinter, very consistent on the continental circuit, deserved a shot that the Astana have given him, but indeed, it's Lonardi who wins. Big win for him. Big win for Poltyvisit Malta ahead of Jason Tesson, Pikrol, Blikrov, Vernon, Arvanitou, Tamino, Pockelmann, Ekman, and Leipin. Here is what Lonardi had to say. Giovanni Lonardi, what a win. Maybe the best of your career. Tell us your feelings. Yeah, I'm super happy. I searched it a lot this year, and it comes today. I'm very, very happy. Also, the team work did an amazing job today. I have no words. I searched it a lot, and I win today. Tomorrow, we've got another pretty straightforward sprint, but we're in the Arctic Circle. You just need a little bit of variable weather, which you can get, and suddenly, you've got a completely different stage. Hope you enjoyed the video. See you at the recap tomorrow. Ciao, ciao.