Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) took his third stage win in just four participations in the Criterium du Dauphiné when he powered clear to take the victory in the sprint finish at the end of today's third stage. With the Tour de France looming on the horizon, the win was just was the Norwegian needed and he is now ready to turn his attention to the team's main objective: the overall win.

No one knows how to win at the Criterium du Dauphiné like Edvald Boasson Hagen. When the Norwegian first lined up at the event in 2010, he took a formidable solo win on the 1980 worlds course in Sallanches to start his love story with the French race and since then he has been almost unstoppable.

He came up against and invincible John Degenkolb in 2011 and had to settle for 2nd and 3rd in the two sprint finishes, but last year he proved his speed by winning the only traditional bunch sprint. Today he repeated that last performance by sprinting clear of Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge), Gianni Meersman (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and compatriot Thor Hushovd to win the third stage of this year's edition.

Sky has done nothing to hide their ambitions of taking a third consecutive overall win in the race but nonetheless the team decided to put some efforts into today's sprint. The team assisted Omega Pharma-Quick Step by setting a hard pace on the final climb and on the subsequent descent, the two teams did not hold anything back.

Michal Kwiatkowski from the Belgian team gapped the peloton on the descent and joined lone leader Bart De Clercq (Lotto-Belisol). That forced Team Sky to close down the move on their own and an amazingly strong Peter Kennaugh did just that with 1,5km to go.

Geraint Thomas was the next in line and the Welshman brought his Norwegian sprinter safely through the final two left-hand bends and made him start his sprint from the front with around 200m to go. Boasson Hagen owed a lot to the great efforts of his teammates and he was full of praise at the end of the stage.

“I’m really happy to take the win today," he said. "The team did a great job to chase down the two riders on the front in the final kilometres. Geraint and Pete did lots of work to bring the move back and then gave me a great lead out."

“I felt pretty good in the sprint and I managed to take the win so I’m really happy about that, both for myself and the team," he continued. "The whole team is really strong and I’m looking forward to the rest of the stages here. It’s very nice to win at the Dauphiné again. I’m really happy. ”

Boasson Hagen had slipped a little under the radar since stage 1 where many expected him to battle it out for the win. However, the Norwegian was dropped on the penultimate climb and while he managed to get back on, he appeared to be far from his best.

Hence, the win was a nice confidence boost for the Norwegian with the Tour de France coming up in the near future.

"In stage 1, I just didn’t have the legs for climbing. It takes a while to get used to the mountains. Now I feel good. My form is coming at the right time. It’s great for my morale to come up with a stage win at the Dauphiné again."

“It’s a good boost," he continued. "I’m aiming to get in better shape for the Tour de France and it looks like I am heading in the right direction, so I’m happy about that. I did a good block of training after the Tour of Norway and then took a few days to relax, and that meant I was good to go here at the Dauphine.”

With a stage win now in his pocket, Boasson Hagen is ready to turn his full attention to the team's main objective: an overall win for Chris Froome.

"I’m ready to switch my focus to my other job helping Chris Froome," he said. "Our main goal at Team Sky remains the yellow jersey."

The first of the battles between the overall contenders will be tomorrow's 32,5km time trial. Boasson Hagen will have no chance to help Froome on that occasion but that does not mean that he will hold anything back. The usually strong time triallist was surprisingly beaten at last year's Norwegian championships by Reidar Borgersen and he will use tomorrow's stage as a test prior to his attempt to take back that title.

"I'm sure there will be a few guys faster than me but it will be good practice with the national championships coming up later this month," he said ."I'll try to go fast and we'll see how we go."

Starting at 11.00 you can follow the time trial in its entirety on CyclingQuotes.com/live.