🎥 Nomination for cycling interview of the year comes from Giro Next Gen after 124 km attack

If there is one video you watch this Sunday — alongside the clip of Liam Slock crashing right on the finish line at the GP Gippingen — make it Kasper Haugland’s flash interview. The Norwegian completed a 124-kilometer attack in the opening stage of the Giro Next Gen, keeping just two seconds in hand on the line.

Since we did not see the entire stage unfold, Haugland can explain it best himself. He did so while pulling faces and gasping for air, having lost another eight minutes of his hard-earned advantage to the peloton in the final 40 kilometers. But somehow, he still had two seconds left.

“I was already away with a group of six riders, but it wasn’t really working,” Haugland said. “Then I decided to attack together with my best friend Hakon Eiksund Oknes, and an Italian guy came with us. It was a breakaway where nobody was playing games; everyone did their work. But I believed in myself after the good year I’ve had.”

The Norwegian rider from Decathlon CMA CGM’s development team continued: “I was on the front with 60 or 70 kilometers to go, doing 420 watts, and I saw that they were no longer pulling. So I just attacked, and suddenly I heard I had an eight-minute lead. I really had no idea what they were doing in the peloton, but I suppose I have to thank them.”

“I just went, and I didn’t know it was such a difficult course to ride solo,” he went on. “I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I just went for it. It was a crazy day, and I am so dead. I don’t think I pushed any decent watts in the final ten or twenty kilometers, but it is unbelievable.”

“This was the hardest day of my life. I don’t know how long it all took. I had a good day, a really good day. It is unbelievable, and it means so much to me,” Haugland said. Then, completely spent, he broke down when asked who he wanted to dedicate the victory to. “I want to thank my grandmother. She died five years ago, and this one is for her, my whole family, all the coaches, but especially my grandmother.”

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]