For the second year in a row, the season-ending Veneto Classic was won by a rider wearing a Uno-X Mobility jersey, this time in the form of Sakarias Koller Løland. It was a hard-fought thing on the jagged terrain of the northeastern Italian region, but Løland dug deep to regain contact after being dropped from the fractured lead group, ultimately out-punching Florian Vermeersch and Diego Ulissi to take what looked in the end like a confident victory.
"It's unbelievable. It'll take a while for this to sink in, I think," Løland said in his winner's interview. "It was so hard. I was going metre by metre almost and I didn't really believe I could fight for the win until I got back after the gravel section at the end."
A first-ever pro win is always something to be celebrated, but Løland's bears heightened significance given what it means for Uno-X, poised now for promotion to the WorldTour from 2026 – another landmark first for a Norwegian team.
"Am I allowed to curse? Fucking hell, that was a crazy ride,” said a very excited Emil Vinjebo, team DS and former pro, on the team’s social media. “In the morning everyone was so nervous about the points, I could feel they had the weight on their shoulders, and in the end? They just raced.”
After a defiant late effort from promotion rival Cofidis in Guangxi and Japan, and the Lotto-Intermarché merger gathering momentum, the gap between the two teams vying for the 18th WorldTour spot had narrowed going into the final weekend, meaning it was all to play for on the last Sunday of the road season. At the start of the Veneto Classic, both squads will have been acutely aware of the value of the prize pot, that is, victory would carry 200 UCI points, which was greater than the margin between them (174, by this author's calculations at around lunchtime).
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