Alexander Kristoff (Uno X Mobility) was the fastest to the line on stage 5 of the 2024 CRO race to claim his second win of the week in the town of Karlovac.
The Norwegian’s team took control in the final three kilometres to deliver their leader perfectly to the line. Kristoff had the power to hold off Israeli national champion Oded Kogut (Israel-Premier Tech) and Giovanni Lonardi (Polti-Kometa).
Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) kept his lead going into the final stage but saw his advantage cut significantly throughout the stage as dsm-firmenich-PostNL held things together for Tobias Lund Andresen to take eight seconds back through the stage’s intermediate sprints. McNulty now leads Andresen by 14 seconds, with Edoardo Zambanini in third place overall.
Kristoff was delighted to pick up his eighth win of the season after shaking off some illness from earlier in the week.
“I felt better today. I've been struggling a bit the last days, but today I felt from the start I had more normal legs and I could sit in the front all day,” Kristoff said in a TV interview after the finish.
“It was a short stage, normally I'm not super in that, but today the team put me in a really good position for the final kilometres. I for sure had the easiest run in, and at the end I managed to hold them behind me. I'm very happy I got a perfect lead out from all the guys, and I'm very grateful,” he added.
Flooding in the area around the scheduled start town of Ozalj meant that stage five of the 2024 CRO race was shortened from 167km down to 100km.
The racing was on as soon as the riders rolled out of the new start in Bosiljevo. Several attempts were made to form a significant break of the day early on, but dsm-firmenich-PostNL were determined to keep things together, going for bonus seconds with their Danish rider sitting second on GC overnight, Andresen. The 22-year-old was sitting 22 seconds down on McNulty coming into the stage, but took eight bonus seconds from intermediate sprints to cut his deficit to 14 before the stage approached a likely sprint in Karlovac.
The sprint teams shared the duties on the fast run-in to the finish, keeping the pace high for their fast men. Uno X Mobility mobbed the front in support of Kristoff as the riders approached the flamme rouge and dodged a litany of road furniture.
The Norwegian stayed strong to hold off a fast-finishing Oded Kogut to take the 96th professional win of his career. Although Andresen had taken time back in the overall during the stage, his fourth place meant no more bonus seconds at the line.
The race concludes on Sunday with a sprint stage into the Croatian capital city of Zagreb. There will once again be three sprints with bonus seconds available, meaning that the overall title for the 2024 CRO Race is still in play.
