Nice one for Stevenson

60 riders on the starting line. 6 teams with 9 riders and 6 riders with no teammates here – among the last some of the biggest favorites such as Breschel, Fuglsang, Bak and Rasmussen.

Early in the race a big break of 11 riders form. Saxo seems fairly content as they keep the lead between one and two minutes. As the break slowly builds a bigger lead a perfect situation for Falcon – Norheim establishes. In front a lot of good riders work hard, while Jesper Mørkøv just sits there, as the break seems doomed and that he won’t stand a chance against most of his breakaway companions. In the peloton Saxo work hard to catch up with the break and only Klostergaard and Kenneth Hansen can find the resources to keep the peloton behind.

Results:
1. Kasper Klostergaard, Saxo Bank - Tinkoff Bank
2. Kenneth Hansen, Christina Watches - Onfone
3. Matti Breschel, Rabobank Cycling Team
6. Jesper Mørkøv, Falcon - Norheim
7. Kasper Jebjerg, Falcon - Norheim

28 cyclists are here. 26 of them hoping to find some miraculous way to beat Boasson-Hagen.
Øster Hus, Falcon – Norheim and Joker unite in a break hoping to force the favorites to work from the start, that way making them tired enough to be beatable in the end. With 100 km to go the trio has a lead of more than 14 minutes and Boasson-Hagen, himself has been forced in front of the peloton along with Hushovd. The union of the small teams may be the recipe to beat the best.
With 60 km to go it appears that David will beat Goliath, and at the 40 km mark the peloton seems to abandon the chase. Either Geir Berg, E. Jarlseth or J. Ziesler will be the new Norwegian champion. Jarlseth makes the race in front hard and both Berg and Ziesler look tired but hang on and the group enter the last three km together. Ziesler opens the sprint, Berg and Jarlseth are in his wheel. Berg tries to use a short downhill section to get extra speed in his sprint and takes the lead.


Jarlseth does his best, but cannot accelerate fast enough back on the flat to close the gap. Behind the winners Hushovd and Boasson-Hagen show that they would have been superior had they not let the trio get so big a lead.


Results:
1. Geir Berg, Falcon - Norheim
2. Eirik Jarlseth, Joker Merida
3. Johan Ziesler, Team Øster Hus - Ridley

Another win. Great job.

Another National Champion for the team, Brilliant

Unfortunately the Swedish time-trial championships were cancelled due to some technical problem. The Finnish cycling federation have decidede to hand out the championship to the best ranked Finnish rider at the end of the season.

	TT-champion	RR-Champion
Austria		Andreas Hofer
Belgium	Thomas De Gendt	Tom Boonen
Canada	Svein Tuft	Ryder Hesjedal
Columbia	Rigoberto Urán	Leonardo Duque
Czech Republic	Frantisek Rabon	Frantisek Rabon
Estonia		Rein Taaramäe
France	Jérome Coppel	Lloyd Mondory
Germany	Andreas Klöden	Fabian Wegmann
Great Britain	Bradley Wiggins	Geraint Thomas
Ireland		Daniel Martin
Italy	Damiano Cunego	Vincenzo Nibali
Kazakhstan		Valentin Iglinsjiy
Lithuania		Tomas Vaitkus
Luxembourg		Cyrille Heymans
Netherlands	Robert Gesink	Martin Maaskant
Poland	Michal Kwiatkowski	Tomasz Smolen
Portugal	Tiago Machado	Manuel Cardoso
Russia	Denis Menchov	Matvey Zubov
Slovenia		Andy Bajc
Spain	Samuel Sanchez	Mikel Astarloza
Switzerland	Fabian Cancellara	Reto Hellenstein
Ukraine	Yaroslav Popovych	Yaroslav Popovych
USA	Tejay Van Garderen	Chris Horner

Time to show out new championship jerseys to the world. It started out very quiet, but when a 3-man break formed the new Swedish Champion Christofer Stevenson found his way in there. Stevenson didn’t have the legs today and lost contact with the two others. In the peloton Katusha pushes up the speed, but not quite enough to catch Serge Pauwels…



Results:
1. Serge Pauwels, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
2. Ivan Rovny, RusVelo
3. Pavel Brutt, Katusha
27. Philip Lindau, Falcon – Norheim

Monthly status – June

Rider of the month:
Cadel Evans. Cadel dominated Tour de Suisse with three stage wins and a GC victory after 7 days in the lead.

CQ Rankings:
1. Cadel Evans, BMC Racing, 2004 pts
2. Fabian Cancellare, Radioshack - Nissan, 1672 pts
3. Tom Boonen, Omega Pharma – Quick-Step, 1510 pts
34. Kasper Jebjerg, Falcon – Norheim, 533 pts

1. Radioshack – Nissan, 5095 pts
2. Garmin – Sharp, 4346 pts
3. Euskaltel - Euskadi, 4159 pts
13. Falcon – Norheim, 2179 pts

2. Spain, 5931 pts
1. Belgium, 5054 pts
3. Italy, 5023 pts
8. Denmark, 2709 pts
15. Norway, 1568 pts
23. Sweden, 778 pts
34. Finland, 295 pts

Next month on Falcon - Norheim:
July will have focus on winning a stage in Tour de Wallonie to please our sponsors. Other than that we will chase breakaways, but we will not use energy trying to get secondary results. Win or nothing. We hope to see good results from Landbouwkredit, Cofidis and Saur – Sojasun so that these teams can pass us on the ranking and postpone our promotion for at least one season.

Transfer rumours:
Several Nordic riders have extended their contracts and nine riders of interest remain on the market. Fortunately Falcon – Norheim has exactly a maximum of nine available slots on the 2013-team.

The riders on the market are:
Lars Ytting Bak, Lasse Bøchman, Jesper Hansen, Christopher Juul-Jensen and Thomas Nybo Riis
Thor Hushovd, Sondre Sörtveit, Svein Erik Vold
Tobias Ludvigsson

Lars Bak would be nice to have. Maybe Ludvigsson as well

Good job at the NC's and Kranj.

On a press-conference earlier today Falcon - Norheim presented three new riders for the next seasons. A young talent, a solid rider in his prime with unreleased potential and a superstar.

Hushovd. Great signing

Really nice signings

Hushovd
Awesome man!

Great additions for the Team

Really hope that Hushovd puts in some great performances for the team and gets them noticed more

I sure intend to get Hushovd back to his former self. We wont stand much of a chance in the World Tour if he doesn't get some good wins...

At the moment my best climber has a mountain rating of 70, so we're gonna have a lot of bad days on the highest level

With the demands Hushovd made in his signing, we will now again see Falcon – Norheim as we know them – chasing every single chance the race has to offer.
Haavardsholm and Lindau got in the big break of the day, but a lot of teams showed interest in bringing everything together again. They took no chances, and in the end they got what they came for: A bunch sprint.



Results:
1. Roberto Ferrari, Androni Giacottoli - Venezuela
2. Alessandro Bazzana, Team Type 1 - Sanofi
3. Davide Cimolai, Lampre - ISD
21. Magnus Bäckstedt, Falcon – Norheim

Nice to see Magnus getting a decent finish

The sponsors want a stage win in Wallonie so we will see the team chasing every opportunity, that arises.

Stage 1
A hilly stage, which might very well be decisive for the GC. Ricky Jørgensen got in the large break of the day – a break that would end up lasting all the way to the finish line. Realizing he was one of the slowest finishers in the group he tried attacking a bit further out, but didn’t manage to get a decisive lead and didn’t stand a chance in the sprint.

Stage results:
1. Ruben Zepuntke, Rabobank Continental
2. Freddy Bichot, Veranda Rideau – Super U
3. Gaetan BIlle, Lotto Belisol
11. Ricky Jørgensen, Falcon – Norheim

Stage 2
Categorized as a flat stage, but it is still so hilly, that the sprinters shouldn’t feel too sure of themselves.
It took a few tries for a breakaway to get a decent lead. First Søren Nissen got away, but the group was never allowed real lead. Later Daniel Krutzfeldt was out showing the jersey and ended up fighting for the win. And he did a very good job, though the last few hundred meters were too steep for him to match Peter Kennaugh.

Stage results:
1. Peter Kennaugh, Sky
2. Marek Rutkiewicz, CCC Polsat – Polkowice
3. Daniel Kreutzfeldt, Falcon – Norheim



Stage 3
While Andy Schleck rode the Champs Elysses in yellow the Falcons had yet another day chasing a stage win in Belgium. Today might prove to be tougher for the breakaway as Team Sky is now defending the lead.
Everything started out the same way as the last two days. A small break gets a 2-3 minute lead, and more riders join them making it quite a big break. Today 11 riders, among those Ole Haavardsholm.
20 km to go and the break has a lead of two minutes. This could be a close one. Sadly Haavardsholm isn’t to fond of the flat, so when the break ups the speed Ole lose contact. In the end the peloton merges with the break, but Vanmarcke just manage to grab the win.

Stage results:
1. Sep Vanmarcke, Garmin - Sharp
2. Preben Van Hecke, Topsport Vlaanderen - Mercator
3. Justin Jules, Veranda Rideau – Super U
25. Philip Lindau, Falcon – Norheim



Stage 4
The flattest stage so far. Should be a certain victory for the sprinters. Kreutzfeldt got in the first break of the day, practically dooming it, but Daniel got the first bonus sprint gaining 6 seconds in the GC and another 6 seconds in the second sprint of the day. Now Kennaugh only leads by 10 seconds! For the rest of the day Sky neutralized every single break with a Falcon rider in it, but in the end they allowed two rides to take the stage for themselves as a huge crash in the peloton slows things quite a bit.

Stage results:
1. James Vanlandschoot, Accent Jobs – Willems Veranda’s
2. Matthew Brammeier, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
3. Robert Hunter, Garmin - Sharp
22. Søren Nissen, Falcon – Norheim
Points Jersey: Daniel Kreutzfeldt



Stage 5
Should be a day for the breaks, but we will see Falcon – Norheim go for the three intermediate sprints trying to win Kreutzfeldt the jersey and hopefully those 10 seconds he is behind in the GC.
Apparently Sky have forgotten about the bonus second allowing Kreutzfeldt to pick up the first 6 second without any competition. Unfortunately lots of breakaway attempts took care of the last two sprints. Those breakaways should prove to be real dreambreakers as Dries Devenyns used them as a launch for a majestic solo ride winning him both the stage and the GC, thus banishing Kreutzfeldt to a GC 3rd.

Stage results:
1. Dries Devenyns, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
2. Jan Ghyselinck, Cofidis
3. Koen Barbé, Landbouwkredit - Euphony
35. Magnus Bäckstedt, Falcon – Norheim


Final Standing:
1. Dries Devenyns, Omega Pharma - Quickstep
2. Peter Kennaugh, Sky
3. Daniel Kreutzfeldt, Falcon – Norheim
6. Ricky Jørgensen, Falcon – Norheim

Mountains: Dries Devenyns, Omega Pharma – Quickstep
Points: Daniel Kreutzfeldt, Falcon – Norheim
Young rider: Peter Kennaugh, Sky
Team: Omega Pharma - Quickstep

The sponsors didn't get there wish of a stage win but Kreutzfeldt came real close on stage two

Still they should be happy with his Overall victory in the Points Competition