Tour of Norway: Mads Pedersen wins stage 3

Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) won stage 3 of the Tour of Norway, winning with a long sprint ahead of a reduced bunch including a number of major rivals. 

Pedersen made a late-race solo attack but was reeled in. Yet he had enough power and strength left to then win the rising sprint in Jorpeland. 

Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) was second and Like Teunissen (Jumbo-Visma) finished third.

"We had some stop and goes in the last 60km and with 20km to go, it was a good moment to attack over the small climb, and I got a good gap," Pedersen said. 

"The guys behind, Jumbo-Visma, didn't agree and they pulled to catch me, and they did. I was suffering like a pig in the last five kilometres but my teammates did a good job to keep me out of trouble, and they believed in me and my sprint. I'm just happy that I could finish it off."

Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) finished fourth after Ineos Grenadiers worked hard to defend his race lead against Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Teunissen as the race heads into the final stage 4 on Sunday. Hayter leads Schelling by 15 seconds, with Teunissen at 25 seconds. 

Stage 3 was 160km to and from Jorpeland that included two categorised climbs; Hjelmmeland (65km) at 4.8km with a gradient of 6.4 per cent and Heggheim (100km) at 1.6kmm and average grade of 8.3 per cent.

A breakaway formed in the opening kilometres of the race to include Sébastien Grignard (Lotto Soudal), Aaron Verwilst (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Anthon Charmig (Uno-X Dare Development Team), Mads Rahbek (BHS-PL Beton Bornholm), and James Fouché (Black Spoke Pro Cycling Academy).

Their gap was reduced to 30 seconds by the time they reached the second categorised ascent at Heggheim. From the main field behind, riders lost contact and the reduced bunch included many of the main overall contenders, including overall race leader Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers).

The breakaway riders were reeled in during the final kilometres that led to a counter attack by Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), who gained a slim eight seconds gap with 16km to go and increased to 25 seconds with 10km to go. However, his efforts were short-lived as the teams pushed over the last climb on route to bring him back into the fold.

The reduced field contested the sprint, and to everyone's surprise, it was Pedersen who stormed across the line first to take the stage victory in Jorpeland.