'It's a bit surreal' says Søren Wærenskjold of Het Nieuwsblad victory

Sixteen years after Thor Hushovd gave Norway its debut victory in Het Nieuwsblad, Søren Wærenskjold admitted it felt ‘a bit surreal’ to have emulated his compatriot, especially as he’d come to Opening Weekend with Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on his programme rather than Saturday’s big race.

‘I’m pinching myself, I came to Belgium for Sunday’s race and this one rarely ends in a sprint,’ said the Uno-X Mobility rider, who got a late call-up at the expense of teammate Markus Hoelgaard because the headwind made a bunch finish much more likely than it usually is for Nieuwsblad.

‘I have no words for this, but I’m very happy with this victory,’ Wærenskjold told Eurosport. ‘This is the biggest win of my career, by far, especially with all these big names in the peloton. This is a big step for me in the right direction. It shows what is possible.’

The 24-year-old said that his Norwegian team had wanted to get a rider into the break going into the race. When that didn’t happen, their focus changed to ensuring that they had riders at the front approaching the key climb of the Eikenberg, where the critical action was expected to kick off.

‘We told Rasmus Tiller and Jonas Abrahamsen that they had to be at the front to follow the strongest riders, and I was supposed to be in the second or third group to try and save energy if it was a sprint,’ Wærenskjold explained. ‘I was behind a fall on the Molenberg. I then tried to close the gap, but didn’t have the legs. I just tried not to go all out on the climbs, but in the end I still had to almost do that. The pace was so fast.’

When it came to the sprint, the Uno-X rider said he had planned to accelerate to the left, but found he was blocked in. ‘Then there was an opening on the right, where I had been expecting to be blocked off, and went for that, and it turned out perfectly. I was pushing with everything that I had. I could see that Paul Magnier was beside me, that we really close and I just did my best to finish ahead of him.’

Wærenskjold was unsure whether he would still be selected for Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, a race that tends to go the way of the sprinters. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘But now I can relax for the rest of the Classics season, or at least until Paris-Roubaix, which is the next big goal for me.’