Ladies Tour of Norway: Vos wins stage 3

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Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) has won her second consecutive stage of the Ladies Tour of Norway. When she attacked with eight kilometres to go on the first ascent of the 1400-metre finishing climb to Fredriksten Fortress, only Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) could follow, and the two riders worked well together on the final lap before a tactical climb to the finish.

Vos forced Rivera into the lead and then launched her sprint with 200 metres to go, winning the stage five seconds ahead of Rivera. Demi Vollering (Parkhotel Valkenburg) finished third, 11 seconds down. Vos now holds a lead of 19 seconds ahead of the final stage 4.

"The race went just as we had hoped for," CCC-Liv sports director Jeroen Blijlevens explained the team's tactics. "We wanted to strike on the first time up the finishing climb that was raced twice. Marianne was to attack there and see who could follow. The goal was to take time on the competition as over thirty riders were still at ten seconds before the stage."

How it happened

Stage 3 covered 125 km starting in Moss and finishing at Fredriksten Fortress overlooking the town of Halden. Most of the stage wasn't particularly challenging with only one classified climb on the way, but the finish in Halden packed a punch as riders had to climb to Fredriksten Fortress twice in the last nine kilometres.

Shannon Malseed (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) attacked after 15 km and was let go by the peloton, settling in for a long solo breakaway. Local rider Emilie Moberg (Team Virtu Cycling) picked up three points at the first intermediate sprint to defend her green points jersey while Malseed's advantage grew more and more.

50 km into the stage, the 24-year-old Australian was almost six minutes ahead of the peloton – but as Malseed was 9:36 minutes behind Vos in the general classification before the stage, the race lead was not in danger.

When the time gap maxed out at almost seven minutes with 55 km to go, the peloton started chasing in earnest, with Mitchelton-Scott and Canyon-SRAM taking responsibility and reducing the gap to 4:15 minutes at the 40-kilometre mark.

A big crash broke up the peloton and disrupted up the chase, and Ingvild Gåskjenn (Hitec Products-Birk Sport) as well as Saartje Vandenbroucke (Doltcini-Van Eyck) had to abandon the race. But with Trek-Segafredo and CCC-Liv also sharing in the work, Malseed's advantage dropped to under a minute with 22 km to go.

Though another crash with 17 km to go split the peloton, Malseed was caught shortly afterwards, and the race entered the technical finishing circuit in Halden with 11 km to go. Franziska Koch (Team Sunweb) sneaked away through the corners but was caught again as the first ascent to the finish line started. Stine Borgli (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) went to the front, and then Vos accelerated from the Norwegian's wheel.

Borgli, Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), and Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) all tried to keep up, but only Rivera managed to get into her wheel as Vos started the final lap of 7.5 kilometres. On the technical circuit, the two increased their advantage to 34 seconds at the two-kilometre mark.

In a last attempt to close the gap, Niewiadoma launched an attack from the chasing group on the lower slopes of the climb and was followed by Floortje Mackaij (Team Sunweb). As Niewiadoma came closer, Vos forced Rivera into the lead with 500 metres to go and then launched a stage-winning punch 200 metres from the line. A surging Vollering passed Niewiadoma just before the line to take third place.

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