Spilak wins stage 3 at Arctic Tour

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Simon Spilak (Katusha) attacked on the closing climb in the third stage of the Arctic Tour of Norway to take the stage win. Steven Kruijswijk (Belkin) went with him to finish second and claim the overall lead. Jonathan Hivert (Belkin) rounded out the Dutch team’s big day by finishing third, 15 seconds down.

Kruijswijk moved up from third to first overall, taking over from his teammate Lars Petter Nordhaug. A sprinter rather than a climber, Nordhaug hung on to the field as long as he could on the final climb, the Kvaenangsfjellet, after 132 kilometers from Alta. Nordhaug finished in the chasing group only 15 seconds down, and dropped to second. Third is now Davide Villella (Cannondale), who had previously been second.

The third stage of this northernmost race took the peloton along the northern coast of Norway, with more spectacular scenery. It got off to a fast start but a group of three got away early. Albert Timmer (Giant-Shimano), Florian Senechal (Cofidis) and Vegard Robinson Bugge (Joker) built up a lead of just under three minutes.

The weather didn’t co-operate though, and the rain started falling again. Belkin and Ridley led the chase, and the gap came down. At 46 seconds it became too close for Timmer, who had won both intermediate sprints, and he attacked out of the lead group on the first of the day’s two climbs.

Once Senechal and Bugge were caught, Katusha took over the lead and made quick work of catching Timmer. With 12 km to go, they were all together again.

The closing climb was approaching – the Kvaenangsfjellet, a 6.9km long climb with an average gradient of 5.7% -- and almost immediately five more riders took off. They built up a small gap, but the climb managed to tear things apart.

The peloton splintered, and Spilak put in a strong attack. He was joined by Kruijswijk, whose teammate and race leader Lars Petter Nordhaug was having difficulties.

The two leaders had a small gap with attacks continuing out of the by-now very small field and a vicious headwind countering everyone. But the duo held on to their lead, with Spilak taking the win and Kruijswijk finishing second to take the general lead.

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