Ethan Hayter: "To keep winning races is so nice"

Ethan Hayter has endured a mixed season, with several missed opportunities however with several wins to his name. Yesterday at the Tour of Norway he struck gold with a sprint win after a tough day, and returned to his winning ways.

“It’s incredible. To keep winning races is so nice and I owe that one to my teammates," he said in a post-race interview. With wins at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali and Tour de Romandie it comes as another successful stage-race in the short and explosive stage to Geilo.

He described how INEOS stimulated the echelons that have exploded the field several times in the Norwegian plateaus: "We knew it could be windy and actually the snowbanks were making a lot of shelter. We knew a few guys were sat at the back and we thought we’d try (split the race). It was good fun!"

In the end, he followed the leadout that Jumbo-Visma formed for Mike Teunissen, and managed to oversprint the Dutchman in the slight uphill finale for a narrow win.

"We did our homework before as riders and we thought this could be a nice moment to go if it hadn’t already gone on the climb. It was quite a small group in the end, so we made some time for GC," he concluded. It's unclear if he'll be able to contest for the overall classification, however with Tao Geoghegan Hart and Luke Plapp inside of the first echelon the British team find themselves in a strong position.