One of the most talented first-year U23 GC riders, Jørgen Nordhagen dominated in Tour Alsace Stage 3, attacking early on the final climb and winning his first elite UCI race.
It was the queen stage of Tour Alsace with a mountain top finish up La Planche des Belles Filles (5.78 km, 8.69%). In 2023 Seb Berwick won with a powerful performance, pushing 6.39 ᵉW/Kg for 16:54 min. Tadej Pogačar set the climbing record in the 2020 Tour de France at the end of the legendary stage 20-time trial, doing 6.92 ᵉW/Kg for 16:10 min.
24-year-old French climber Clément Braz Afonso spent 2,312 kilojoules for 3:12h at 13.16 kj/kg/h before the final climb. The peloton did Col des Chevreres (3.4 km, 9.8%) in 12 minutes, pushing 5.8 ᵉW/Kg, but the stage overall was easy compared to other races.
The race favourite Jørgen Nordhagen was ahead of the peloton before La Planche des Belles Filles as it might have split after a late descent according to directvelo.com live ticker. It was Visma | Lease a Bike Development rider’s show, as the 19-year-old Norwegian attacked early on the climbing segment. His teammate Colby Simmons was ahead of the group before La Planche des Belles Filles and was caught by the Norwegian. Simmons helped Nordhagen for a while as a satellite rider. CTF Victorious rider Roman Ermakov was the last remaining rider from the breakaway but was caught late into the climb and finished 9th. Nordhagen beat some of the best French non-WorldTour climbers by over 40 seconds.
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Nordhagen averaged 6.41 ᵉW/Kg for 17:05 min, which is a good performance by a 19-year-old rider, but he probably will need more watts to challenge Jarno Widar in Tour de l’Avenir. French conti climbers Nicolas Breuillard and Remi Capron pushed 6.25 ᵉW/Kg for 17:07 min from the peloton. Léo Bisiaux, who is a first-year U23 rider like Nordhagen, finished 8th with 6.20 ᵉW/Kg.
Where is Tadej Isola 2000 performance on the graph?
Accidentally deleted. Now added. Thanks