Teddy bears, big trophies, and four jerseys: Jonas Iversby Hvideberg's 'surreal' and 'amazing' total leadership at the Volta a Catalunya

Such is his dominance, the idea of Tadej Pogačar winning all four classification jerseys is not unfathomable. Indeed, the Slovenian collected three of the four at the 2020 Tour de France.

But at this week's Volta a Catalunya, a young Norwegian rider who we doubt barely any fans outside of his home nation are aware of, achieved what is surely one of the rarest but impressive feats in cycling: he led the race in every single way of scoring it.

For Jonas Iversby Hvideberg, who is riding his first season with Team DSM, was awarded for being part of both breakaways on stages one and two with the title as the leader of the general, points, mountains and youth classification.

He was, until the mountains came calling on stage three, in a position of complete superiority; he owned the race.

"It was a surreal day," the 23-year-old admitted to Cycling Weekly after stage three. "Amazing, really. It was just an amazing day in the leader's jersey and I was really happy I was able to have it."

At the finish of stage two, fans in the French city of Perpignan were applauding a Norwegian they'd likely never heard of multiple times, the former Uno-X Pro rider amassing a sizeable winner's collection.

"I didn't get so much, actually," he lied, before revealing one by one what he actually earned. "The leader's jersey, the points, one for the mountains, and a youth's jersey. And then a small trophy that was big, and then a teddy bear." 

How did his two hands hold so many items, one wonders. "The teddy bear will go to my girlfriend who supports me so much, and the trophy... I think I'll find a place for it at home. The jerseys will all go on the wall somewhere."

Hvideberg struggled on the final climb of La Molina and ceded all but the points jersey come the end, but he reflected on his day of fame inside the peloton.

"For sure riders kept on coming up to me and congratulating me. That was really nice. I think people can see that as a team we're here to race, we're here to be in the front. And that's the way we want to continue going forward - putting guys in the breakaway and doing something.

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"It was not maybe the plan to always be in the breakaway, but when I race I always judge the situation and see how the race develops. The first day I jumped in towards the end, and on day two I saw an opportunity when the road was blocked. It will be the same plan in the coming days."

Hvideberg, who won the 2020 U23 European road race championships, will try and hold onto his one remaining jersey, and also try and savour what will no doubt be a memorable week in retrospect.

"For sure, it's been nice, but there are four more days and I will probably hate my life a little bit," he laughed. "But when it all comes back together, I will be able to look back and think what a good week it was."