Gianni Muscon Takes Over Arctic Race Lead

Last updated : 13 August 2016 By CNS Sport

Gianni Muscon of Team Sky took over the lead of the Arctic Race Of Norway after victory on stage three.

The third stage with Team Sky's Danny Van Poppel in the lead was one for the climbers and was 160kms long and from Nesna to Korgfjellet Summit.

The stage started with a twenty rider break and Kevin Van Melsen, who was leading the KOM competition for the Salmon jersey abandoning due to illness.

De Vreese took the first climb at Sjonfjellet after 13.5kms before Alexander Kristoff took the first sprint at Utskarpen some fourteen kilometres later.

Leigh Howard of IAM Cycling took the climb at Bustnes as Daniel Oss of BMC, Irishman Matt Brammeier of Dimension Data, Steele Van Hoff of ONE Pro Cycling joined Howard in a break which had got 2.30 clear.

Oss took the sprint at Moirana and Brammeier took the points on the Langfjell climb as the gap started to drop below the two minutes mark.

Steele Van Hoff took the final sprint ahead of Brammeier but with ten kilometres to go, the gap was down to a minute.

With the race leader dropped, the escapers were caught and Gianni Muscon of Team Sky rode away to take the win in 4.00.09, eleven seconds ahead of Stef Clement of IAM Cycling and 24 seconds ahead of Oscar Gatto of Tinkoff.

The victory which was Muscon's first as a professional means that he leads the race by fourteen seconds from Stef Clement going into the final stage and he said to his team's press office:

It's beautiful. It's an amazing feeling. I have no words to explain how I'm feeling! It's just fantastic.

"I knew I was coming to this race in very good shape. I did a lot of training before I came here and today was a good stage for me. I tried and I'm very happy.

"We did the same climb yesterday in the race and I saw the point when I thought I'd attack. There was three people in Sebastian's group and I thought it would be good to get across. I felt good, got across, then I tried again and just went to the finish.

"The last kilometre was really long, but when you know that you are going to win, you can give something more."

The team will now try to defend Moscon's lead on the fourth and final stage tomorrow.

"Tomorrow should be a sprint stage but you never know. I will be very attentive to everything and of course I want to keep the lead!"