{"id":612144,"date":"2026-04-18T09:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/612144\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T09:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:52:21","slug":"nordhagen-refuses-to-blame-himself-after-major-yates-blow-and-sharpens-knives-for-final-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/612144\/","title":{"rendered":"Nordhagen refuses to blame himself after major Yates blow and sharpens knives for final stage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>O Gran Cami\u00f1o looks increasingly likely to fall into the hands of Adam Yates, after the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider dealt a significant blow to the competition in Friday\u2019s first real mountain test. Behind Yates, J\u00f8rgen Nordhagen finished second after his team, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/visma-lease-a-bike\" title=\"Visma | Lease a Bike\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>, took control on the penultimate climb. The young Norwegian recognised afterwards that he had got everything possible out of the day.<\/p>\n<p>After the breakaway riders were reeled in during Friday\u2019s fourth stage, Visma | Lease a Bike increased the pace on the penultimate climb. When George Bennett (NSN Cycling Team) accelerated there, Anton Schiffer followed the move on behalf of the Killer Bees. In the end, however, the Dutch squad had to settle for second place after Yates rode clear on the steep final climb.<\/p>\n<p>Nordhagen did not try to follow the Briton immediately. Instead, the Norwegian chose to ride at his own pace. He eventually reached the summit 46 seconds behind Yates. \u201cAdam was the strongest today and deserved to win. That\u2019s the honest story,\u201d Nordhagen said afterwards on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teamvismaleaseabike.com\/race-report\/news\/nordhagen-impresses-with-second-place-in-o-gran-caminos-queen-stage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">his team\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t blame myself for anything,\u201d the Norwegian continued. \u201cOn the final climb, I decided not to go full throttle straight away, because I knew I might burn myself out. I rode up at my own pace and tried to find my way into the climb. I think I can be satisfied with how I handled it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/adam-gates.jpeg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"adam-gates\"\/>Nordhagen sharpens knives for final stage: \u201cI\u2019m going to ride aggressively\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sports director Robert Wagner agreed with that assessment. \u201cOf course we wanted to win today and take the yellow jersey, but we also knew Adam would be a worthy opponent. He deserved to win today. I\u2019m proud of the way we approached the race,\u201d the German said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made a plan this morning and executed it from start to finish. Some of the lads are really coming into their own here. It\u2019s fantastic to see,\u201d Wagner concluded.<\/p>\n<p>The gap between Yates and Nordhagen in the general classification is now 34 seconds. In theory, that could still be overturned in Saturday\u2019s tough final stage. \u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to lose tomorrow. I\u2019m going to ride aggressively and try to make things as difficult as possible for Adam,\u201d Nordhagen said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdam has shown himself to be very strong, so I know it will be difficult to beat him. Nevertheless, I\u2019m going to do my absolute best to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O Gran Cami\u00f1o looks increasingly likely to fall into the hands of Adam Yates, after the UAE Team&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,230555,230556,82,10761],"class_list":{"0":"post-612144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-gran-camino","12":"tag-jorgen-nordhagen","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-visma-lease-a-bike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}