UNO-X PRO CYCLING TEAM

An entire country discovered cycling for good when the TV2 channel started broadcasting the Tour de France live in 2002, swooning over the feats of Thor Hushovd, the first Norwegian to don the yellow jersey (and, later, the world champion's rainbow jersey) and a ten-time stage winner who claimed the points classification twice. The enthusiasm of a nation that had traditionally channelled its unconditional love for sport into winter sports led to the creation of the Arctic Race of Norway in 2013 and the launch of several continental teams, including Team Ringeriks-Kraft, which was founded in 2010, renamed to Uno-X in 2018 and promoted to the ProSeries in 2021.

Uno-X and its manager, Jens Haugland, have striven from day one to nurture Scandinavian talent in the pro ranks before it moves on to bigger teams. For example, Tobias Foss, who became the first Norwegian victor of the Tour de l'Avenir in 2019 while riding for Uno-X, went on to ride for Jumbo–Visma and take the 2022 time trial world championship. Andreas Leknessund was also racing for Uno-X when he won the U23 European time trial championship in 2020, repeating his Junior exploit from 2017. After clinching the 2022 Arctic Race of Norway on home turf, the man from Tromsø wore the maglia rosa for five days in the 2023 Giro (eighth overall) while competing for Team DSM. His current teammate Jonas Hvideberg was also with Uno-X when he became the European road race champion in 2020, a year before taking Paris–Tours Espoirs. Søren Wærenskjold went one better, claiming the U23 time trial world championship in 2022. Also a consummated sprinter, he is capable of shining in a wide range of race scenarios.

The second Norwegian to add his name to the honour roll of the Tour de l'Avenir was another Uno-X rider, Tobias Johannessen, who managed to keep the Spaniard Carlos Rodríguez at bay in 2021 after grabbing the first of three stages in a row ahead of his twin brother, Anders. He is going from strength to strength, finishing tenth and fifteenth in his first two starts in the Critérium du Dauphiné, where French aficionados discovered yet another talented Norwegian: Torstein Træen, eighth overall. A few months after receiving the all-clear from a testicle cancer detected thanks to a doping test, he finished third in the 2022 Tour de Langkawi.

Finally, Uno-X has also started to bring home elite Norwegian riders competing for foreign teams, with Alexander Kristoff, a four-time Tour de France stage winner (including the finale on the Champs-Élysées in 2018) and wearer of the yellow jersey near the start of the 2020 Tour. And this is just the beginning. Its first Grand Tour start is a chance to turbocharge the growth of the Scandinavian outfit.