As a neo-pro, he spent nearly all of the first half of the season supporting Kristoff last year. Given more freedom, I expected to him to be much more successful this spring. He seems to have everything required to be a great classics rider. Though Uno-X generally, were pretty quiet until the last few weeks?
Not really sure but I think I remember reading something about him not having the best winter training perhaps. I think it might have been him contemplating moving from Norway to get better winter training to get ready for the spring season better. I think that might be an issue for other Uno-X riders as well. They generally do a lot better later on in the season even if this season has been a bit better than last year. It took a while for them to start winning this year but they have gained a lot more UCI points in the yearly season than they did last year. (Which is important for them either having a hot at WT after 2025 or more likely being in the places that are guaranteed WT spots for Pro Teams).
With Thor Hushovd now as a sports director it will be more of an issue. Hushovd has always stated that Norwegian riders needs to stay more abroad in the winter (like he did himself while living in Monaco). There are different individual needs here and some riders would still prefer to stay more at home.
Ya, even before that he was living in Perpignan from early in his career. One problem they have is that they don't have the funds to send everyone on training camps in Europe all the time so training at home is important and thus living south is an advantage I think. We'll see in years to come if the team still has a hard time getting going each year. They really do need to take full advantage of the classics as a team.
He was the favorite before the ITT, but since Vacek is only 2s behind him, I think he's the favorite now
Could be. Waerenskjold, like the rest of Uno-X is coming into top form, whist Vacek got arguably the best result of his career two weeks ago. Cosnefroy has some time to make up, so Decathlon will probably try to hammer it, as will Trek and VLAB. Saturday's stage should be a lot of fun.
Uno-X also have Tiller, just a few seconds behind Stuyven. And a lot of teams should be wanting to make things hard. It should be a good race!
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