Arctic Race of Norway: Williams wins stage 3, takes lead
Image 1 of 5
Stephen Williams cruised to victory in Stage 3 of the Arctic Race Norway on Saturday. Facing a headwind, the Israel-Premier Tech rider powered his way to victory ahead of Clément Champoussin (Arkéa-Samsic) and Cristian Scaroni (Astana Qazaqstan) who finished second and third respectively.
After a tough day of racing in cold, rainy and windy conditions, Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premier Tech) started a tight sprint with 500m to go on the Class 1 Havøysund climb, but was soon overtaken by Williams on his left, then the Champoussin, Scaroni and Tobias Halland Johannsessen (Uno-X). Teuns held on to fifth place.
Williams also takes over the overall classification, with a narrow lead of one second over Scaroni and nine seconds over Johannsessen who finished fourth on the stage. Leading the stage, Noah Hobbs (Equipe continental Groupama-FDJ) struggled on the climbs and dropped to 38th overall, 3:49 behind.
“I’m very happy to win today and pay back all my teammates for their great work today. It’s also my first win for this team. I was confident going into the final climb and I was given the responsibility today. It was a bit of a dead end to the end because of the headwind. Still, I was able to throw my arms in the air after I got through with a good finishing kick.” Williams said.
“Today’s weather conditions were very demanding. Especially the last hour and a half was freezing with all those descents. Only one more day to go and I will do everything I can to defend and keep this Midnight Sun jersey.”
Gusty winds, rain and temperatures hovering around nine degrees added extra challenges to stage 3. The 167km course, from Hammerfest to Havøysund, included the climbs Skaidi (1.9k at 4.9%), Kirkedalen (4.1km at 5.2%), Selvika (2.6km at 54%) and the final climb of Havøysund (2.2km at 10%).
Six riders broke away early to fight for the King of Mountain points and bonus seconds available on the stage. Escapees Paul Double (Human Powered Health), Michel Ries (Arkea-Samsic), Vincent van Hemelen (Flanders-Baloise), Ulrik Tvedt (Norway) and Coop-Pepsol teammates Karsten Feldmann and Anton Stensby managed to get a maximum margin of five minutes. with 71 kilometers to go.
The smaller Double rider was the first to falter, then Feldmann fell off the pace while Van Hemelen did most of the pace in the hunt for more KOM points.
The peloton, led mainly by the Uno-X team, crumbled and re-formed under the force of gusty winds forcing riders off the back.
With the gap down to 10 seconds, Van Hemelen took off alone and continued to push the pace, going all in until he was caught at the bottom of the final climb. The Belgian scored enough points to win the last climber’s ranking if he finishes stage 4 tomorrow.
UNO-X and Israel-Premier Tech riders took over the front of the reduced field in the final uphill kilometers to the finish line.
Tomorrow’s final will run 171km from Kvalsund to Nordkapp and two climbs in the final 25km will decide the overall race, and with first and 15th overall only 31 seconds apart, it will be a fitting finale.
Results
The results are supported by FirstCycling
#Arctic #Race #Norway #Williams #wins #stage #takes #lead