The jury result was unanimous. After 170km in the breakaway, 140 of them on his own, Uno-X's Jonas Abrahamsen was awarded the prize for the most combative rider on stage eight of the Tour de France. Journalists nodded in agreement when the message came through in the WhatsApp group. Who else, they figured, but the race's solo Norwegian?
The lashing rain at the start of the day pointed to an afternoon of attrition. Fans lined the finishing straight in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises with plastic ponchos and yellow umbrellas, in high spirits despite the downpours. It was a day, for the average hobby cyclist, to stay at home and wait for clearer skies. For Abrahamsen, it was another chance to show off his polka-dot jersey.
"The plan was to go in the breakaway," the 28-year-old said afterwards. It's been the same plan almost every day. "In the start it was pretty good, we had three strong guys, but they didn't want to pull with me, so they went behind with the peloton, and then I went solo."
Ahead of the bunch is where the Norwegian has found his place this season. In fact, no rider has spent more kilometres than him up the road – 1,383km in 48 race days. Five hundred of them have come at this Tour de France alone. He's quite simply a jersey sponsor's dream.
"On the first day, I took the mountain jersey. On the second day, I got second place, and the green jersey, and the mountain jersey. From the first day, I've kept the mountain jersey," he grinned. "I can't believe it, it's so big for me.”
Born in Skien, an old seafaring city in the south of Norway, Abrahamsen has only ever ridden for teams from his home country. He joined Uno-X’s development team in 2017, aged 21, and has remained loyal to the team ever since, winning his first professional race in the one-day Brussels Cycling Classic last month.
Following his Tour debut last year, Abrahamsen made headlines after he revealed he had gained 20kg to bulk up. The approach came as a refreshing one in a sport dominated by weight-cutting, and has paid dividends for the Norwegian, who transformed from a lightweight climber, into a powerful rouleur.
"I think I've never had as much power in four hours before," he said of his lone foray on Saturday. "I was trying to think positive. You never know if the peloton is going to stop behind after a crosswind. I just tried to motivate [myself] to get a stage win, that was the main goal of the team."
Victory, in the end, went to Biniam Girmay for the second time at this year's race. Abrahamsen rolled home 141st, veiled in the anonymity of the bunch, but easily identifiable from his red-spotted threads.
He smiled to the press as he walked through the interview zone afterwards. It's a protocol he has become used to after a week of duties in the polka-dot jersey, a honour that no other Norwegian has experienced.
"I like to have pain in the legs, and I got that today," he said, drawing a chuckle from the media. Can he keep his new jersey until Nice? "I don’t think so. I'm too heavy for that, but I will try. I'll try to find my mountain legs, my climbing legs. You will see, I'll try to keep it as long as possible."
It's a promise that, whether someone joins him or not, more breakaways will come. For as unpredictable as this Tour has been, one sight has been constant: that of Abrahamsen, head to toe in red spots, riding clear of the bunch.
