Thirty-seven-year-old Norwegian Alexander Kristoff, member of team Uno-X Mobility, has won the first stage of this year’s CRO Race, which ran its 162.5- kilometre course from Vodice to Sinj.
Kristoff perfectly timed his final sprint in Sinj, winning by a bike length ahead of Italian duo Giovanni Lombardi (Polti-Kometa) in second place and Alberto Bruttomessa (Bahrain Victorious) in third. This is Kristoff’s 95th career victory, and his first at CRO Race after his second place finish in the general classification last year. Kristoff thus takes the GC leader’s red jersey into the second stage; he is also leading in the contest for the blue points jersey. Axel van der Tuuk (Metec-Solarwatt p/b Mantel) took the green jersey on this stage, while the white jersey for best young rider (23 and under) was taken by Alberto Bruttomesso (Bahrain Victorious).
“I had a bit of a cold this morning and didn’t feel well at the stage start, so we decided to give more priority to the breakaway. But because of a crash in the break itself their lead fell significantly. The finish was pretty stressful because of the narrow roads and sharp turns, but the team kept a good position. In the end I managed to position myself well behind Viviani and surprise him by starting my sprint early. Last year I was second in the GC in this race, but without any stage wins. Now I have a stage win, but we’ll see what happens in the end. This year I’m quite a bit more fatigued than last year”, said Kristoff.
The first intermediate sprint—and thus the first chance to snatch up bonus seconds—was in Šibenik, just 14.5 kilometres from the start, so the peloton remained compact until then. First across the line at the first intermediate sprint was Englishman Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), who thus took three bonus seconds. Second place and two bonus seconds went to Belgian Jordy Bouts (TDT-Unibet), and third place and one bonus second went to Dutchman Luc Wirtgen (Tudor).
