There are two things you need to know about the Arctic Race of Norway.
One is that it takes place (usually) above the Arctic Circle, a geographical anomaly in the usually latitudinally-challenged world of road bike racing.
The other is that the winner of the king of the mountains classification used to win 500 kilograms of salmon.
For a few years, winners were bestowed with half a metric tonne of fish from the Norwegian Seafood Council, who sponsored the race under the slogan: “Salmon is important for Norway.” Fact check: true. Also true: the industry’s success is not an unalloyed one.
Looking into the phenomenon in 2019, former winners told me how they gave out portions to friends and families but still estimated they had “17 years'” worth of the fish to get through. The 2017 winner, Bernie Eisel, actually had the vast quantity of fish flown 9,000 miles to a Team Dimension Data training camp in South Africa in order to get through his prize.
But that sponsorship of the KOM jersey ended after 2021, replaced by Norway’s third-largest hotel chain: Thon Hotels.
The salmon jersey was replaced by the frankly stunning peacock jersey (inspired by some peacock-themed wallpaper in a Thon Hotel). Plus, you win a night’s stay at a Thon Hotel for each day you wear the jersey, and another night if you win the competition overall. That’s potentially five days to see the city life of Oslo and also head north for the aurora borealis.
American rider Stephen Bassett won the revamped prize in 2022, racing for Human Powered Health at the time.
“I would definitely rather have gotten the salmon,” he tells me when asked what he’d have preferred given the choice between salmon and hotel nights, one of many riders mourning the loss of cycling’s materially greatest prize. “Though my Norwegian teammates told me that delivery had been a problem in the past. I won the hotel stays, I think it was around 6-8 nights total, but I have not had the chance to return for a vacation unfortunately.” America to Norway is quite the air fare, to be fair, undoing a lot of the money saved by the free accommodation.
2023’s winner, Vincent Van Hemelen of Team Flanders-Baloise, has returned to the race this year but hasn’t yet redeemed his vouchers.
“My plan is to go this winter with a friend to explore Norway a bit. I’ll go to Oslo and then … I don’t know … maybe further north … ” he told me at the start one day.
“The guys from Thon Hotels told me they have the prize again this year so if you take it you can add some more nights,” Van Hemelen begins when asked if he’s going for the peacock jersey again. “But I’ve just come from altitude camp and I was a bit sick there so I’m not sure if I’m at my best, but we’ll try today.”
In fact, last year the prize wasn’t even the reason he went for the classification in the first place.
“It was more about how the jersey looked. It was a nice jersey and all my teammates said to me it was the coolest jersey you can ever win. The nights were nice but I wasn’t really thinking about it.”
Instead, thanks to a strong showing in the breakaway on stage 1, Tour de Tietema-Unibet’s Jelle Johannink grabbed enough points to put himself in the striking peacock jersey.
“It’s not always like this [hot and sunny]; maybe I’ll come back in the winter for skiing, snowboarding,” Johannink said, already aware that he’d won a night’s stay. “We’ll try keep the jersey. Today it’s a hard start, I will go with the break and then need to survive the climb and sprint for the point.”
Would you rather have salmon than hotel stays?
“Salmon, I really like salmon,” he answered. “I also did the Tour of Norway and ate salmon every day. Salmon is the best prize. Maybe next year they’ll do it.”
Johannink did indeed made the break once again on stage 2 as intended, extending his lead in the peacock jersey competition from 8 points to 14. So 24 hours later I was back outside his team van to get an update. Now with two nights under his belt, was he looking more closely at the Thon Hotels website for holiday options or is he fully focused on the racing?
“Fully focused on the racing but after yesterday’s stage I could now get four or five nights … we’ll see. I’ll go in the breakaway, get some points and save energy, help my teammates before the final climb. I have 27 points and if I get the points on the first few climbs today it should be enough … hopefully …”
But where will the challenge come do you think?
“The guy from Coop-Repsol [only 16 points behind], maybe, or a GC guy could win both uphill finishes. But normally it’s enough, I have a lot of points now.”
Having had a day to ponder, he is potentially considering the Stavanger region for his holiday, but more importantly, who will he be taking with him? Does he have a friend or girlfriend fighting for that spot?
“I’m looking for a girlfriend, maybe here in Norway, I could find someone …” he said, bringing peacocking to a whole new level.
A quick trot over to the Coop-Repsol encampment, and we were face-to-face with Eivind Broholt Faugner, the man keeping Johannink up at night (in his non-Thon Hotel) but he shouldn’t have been so worried.
“I don’t know, he’s strong so I don’t think it’s possible to get him,” he admitted. “I think I’m just going to chill in the peloton and see how fast I can get up to the finish.”
Maybe a teammate could try and block for him in the breakaway, Faugner suggested, but having been bested by Johannink in the sprint at the first KOM the day before, he feared the Dutchman too strong to overhaul. Plus, there were more contentious questions to be pondered concerning the jersey: “Maybe it is a bit far north for peacocks?”
The next morning, before the start of stage 3, we bumped into a man who worked for Mack Brewery, the world’s northernmost brewery who in 2021 sponsored the points competition, and gave away 400 litres of beer for their 145th anniversary (yep, me neither on the significance of that birthday). That’s a rare allowance in a country that has fairly strict alcohol laws, limiting where you can drink it, where you can buy it, and certainly whether you can be given it as a prize in such immense quantity.
“It was very complicated,” he said with a sigh of having to export 400 litres of beer to Lille for the prize’s winner, Cofidis’ Axel Zingle, and not something they were necessarily looking to do again anytime soon.
Back to the race and the stage was set. Johannink simply had to force himself into breakaway for one more day, hoover up the points before the final climb, and mathematically he was all but set to take the jersey back to Bodø without having to worry about the summit finishes on stages 3 and 4 where KOM points were doubled.
Sure enough, he did, scoring top points on the first three climbs of the day before Kamiel Bonneu’s own big day on the final ascent.
The fourth stage was as perfunctory as the others before a finale with a flourish, where Magnus Cort sprinted away uphill to claim both the stage and overall victory, capping off a great week for Uno-X Mobility that also saw Alexander Kristoff win the first two stages.
Nearly nine minutes later, Johannink rolled across the line, greeted not just by the crowd’s cheers as the announcer told them this was their KOM winner, but by the vlogging cameras of his Tietema team, whose main marketing tool is their YouTube channel.
As eyes centred on the victorious rider, a large cheque was stood up against a table to the side of the podium. Written on it, the last three words anyone expected to see at this year’s Arctic Race of Norway: 500KG OF SALMON.
Fighting to get through the ranks of Dutch twentysomething cameramen, we managed to find both TDT-Unibet leader Bas Tietema and then Thor Hushovd, the former rider and ambassador of the race, who corroborated the story of how this prize rose like a fishy phoenix from its watery grave.
“It started months before, we knew about the salmon prize and it didn’t exist anymore, so when we met Thor we asked him how come it isn’t there anymore and what should we do to get that prize back into the race?” Tietema told us.
Hushovd then set them a challenge: Team Tietema had to catch a 10 kg fish from the waters of Norway and win the KOM competition, and then Hushovd would organise for them to win 500 kg of salmon after all.
“We rented a boat in Bodø, we went on the sea, it was our first time fishing ever and without any experience we hooked three fish.”
Maybe you’re in the wrong sport after all?
“We had a DS from Norway with us,” Tietema explained, “he knew all the tricks and advised us but we surprised ourselves a bit.”
They would have also surprised Hushovd, when showing a photo of a fish that was only 4 kg but photoshopped to look many times bigger.
“I said, ‘That’s fine,’ because I didn’t believe they were going to be able to do it,” Hushovd said of his amazement that they’d actually managed to catch a fish. “But then they had to make the next part of the challenge.”
That was the KOM jersey, which Johannink duly delivered.
As we wait during the podium ceremonies, we bump into the man responsible for receiving a call on Monday night and managing to turn around half a ton of salmon in less than 48 hours. Isak Rørnes is the customer manager for Nordic Blu, who work with local fishermen to sell their catch.
“We are a big cooperative that sends salmon all over the world, so we have our own export company,” Rørnes says before adding that the fish will likely be delivered in fillets, and that 500 kg of salmon looks like one and a half pallet’s worth.
Is it hard to whip up that much salmon at such short notice?
“No,” Rørnes answers. “We are in the slaughter period right now and so slaughter about 200 tonnes a week, in one year we produce 10,000 tonnes of salmon.” A mere drop in the ocean.
After Johannink steps off the podium, we go over to confront him, just as Lawson Craddock is walking out of the rider’s tent as he prepares to go up on stage for the best team prize.
“What?!” Craddock exclaims, seeing what is written on the comically large cheque that Johannink is holding, the Dutchman laughing and explaining what happened.
“That’s bullshit … ” Craddock says, regretting not having had this information four days ago. “Maybe I’ll ride for you guys next year.”
“500 kg is a lot,” Tietema admits to me. “So maybe [we’ll eat it] over 10 years.”
One last question for Rørnes, does he think the salmon prize will return in the future?
“I hope the prize will return next year,” he says, despite having a good relationship with Thon Hotels, being the only hotel chain supplied by Nordic Blu’s salmon and both companies being co-sponsors of Norwegian wrestling (every day’s a school day). “We also want the salmon jersey back.”
Finally, we get to Johannink and ask why didn’t he tell us when we’ve been going on to him about hotels all week?!
“But then the whole peloton is riding for it you know?!” he laughs. “It’s the best prize I’ve ever won.”
A smile on his face, he walks away from Norway with far more than he bargained for.
As we head off, we turn back to ask about the hotels.
“I still haven’t decided.”
Additional reporting from Iain Treloar, obviously.
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