Nikias Arndt finished in 29th position at the end of the 10.9km individual time trial third stage of the Tour of Qatar today, 46″ off the winner’s time, with Albert Timmer next fastest for Team Giant-Alpecin in 41st place.

After today’s third stage, Arndt moves up to 21st overall while Tom Veelers, who finished in 83rd place at 1’22” drops out of the top 20 to 25th place.

The stage itself was a fairly straight forward circuit that included eight turns, and several long, straight roads where it was just you against the wind conditions. It was also ridden on road bikes, so it was a real power course, against the clock. By the end of the day it was 2014 overall winner Niki Terpstra (Etixx-Quickstep) with the fastest time, and with it he moved into the overall race lead.

Tomorrow the riders revert back to the peloton, with a 165.5km stage from Al Thakhira to Mesaieed.

After the stage, Arndt talked about the stage and about what’s next for him: “I was pretty motivated today because I know that I have improved in the TT and so I wanted to try for a result. It was quite difficult with the wind and without a TT bike, but my personal goal was to be 30 seconds behind the winner. It turned out to be around 45 but that’s still OK and it’s the first one of the year. I know that my shape is already good but not my best level yet, but so far here it has been a good start and now I can look forward to the next races.

“First though I need to survive the last days here in Qatar! Hopefully we can go for a sprint with Marcel or maybe if everything splits again we can have a few guys in the front group to fight for a win there.

“After Qatar I am looking forward to racing in Oman – I think it’s a little bit easier there, more climbing for sure but you don’t need the same level of concentration as you do here every moment of the stage. I’m also looking forward to the classics too – I was up there yesterday with all the classics specialists and this makes me motivated for this period.”