Hushovd wins stage 3 in Tour of Austria

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Nine days after winning the Norwegian road championship, Thor Hushovd (BMC) continued his run of good form with a sprint victory in stage 3 at the Tour of Austria. Such was the strength of BMC's lead-out that Hushovd's teammate Daniel Oss placed second, followed by Gianni Mearsman (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) in third.

Hushovd was quick to thank his teammates who helped deliver the 35-year-old Norwegian to his third win of the 2013 season.

"The guys did a great job of working together," Hushovd said. "It was actually a hard moment just to pass Daniel [Oss] and then I looked under my arm and couldn't see anyone. I'm really, really happy. When a team works so well like this, it's easy to win a bike race."

There was no change to the top of the general classification as overnight leader Kevin Seeldraeyers (Astana) finished in the main peloton and remains in the yellow jersey. The Belgian maintained his 43-second lead over teammate Alexandr Dyachenko and 59-second advantage over Riccardo Zoidl (Team Gourmetfein Simplon), third on general classification.

Early on the 119.7km stage from Heiligenblut to Matrei/Osttirol Mikhail Ignatyev (Katusha), the 2004 Olympic points race gold medalist, went out on a solo attack. The 28-year-old Russian, no stranger to making strong solo efforts as he was a two-time junior world champion as well as U23 world champion in the time trial discipline, rode alone over the stage's first climb, the category 3 Iselsberg at 22.5km, picked up maximum points at the first intermediate sprint in Leisach (37.2km) and then continued on his escape to claim maximum points at the second climb - the category 2 Fronstadl at 61.8km.

Ignatyev eventually gained a companion as Czech Jakub Kratochvila (Arbö Gebrüder Weiss-Oberndorfer) bridged to the Katusha Russian following the Fronstadl ascent. The duo remained together until 10 kilometres to go as Ignatyev dropped his breakaway companion with the BMC-led peloton bearing down on them. Ignatyev's bid for victory would be neutralised three kilometres later as the Katusha rider was swept up by the field.

BMC controlled the peloton through to the finish where Hushovd and Oss would earn first and second on the slightly uphill drag to the line.

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