Marc De Maar successfully defended his overall lead in the Tour of Norway on today's hard third stage but the UnitedHealthCare rider had to make a gamble. Being isolated, he couldn't cover all moves and had to let a strong move get up the road.

Yesterday Marc De Maar became a surprise leader of the Tour of Norway when he entered a breakaway that successfully stayed away till the finish in what should have been a sprint stage. Today he faced his first defence of his position in the first ever summit finish of the race.

De Maar's UnitedHealthCare teammates had to work hard all day to keep an early breakaway in check which left De Maar on his own in the finale of the race. At that point a strong break with the likes of Gustav Larsson (IAM), Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin) and Stef Clement (Belkin) had taken off and De Maar had to count on other teams to bring it back.

The race leader was lucky that the difference was reduced sufficiently to allow him to defend his overall lead even though he saw Larsson move into third, just 6 seconds off the lead. Afterwards, he admitted that he had had to make a gamble and that he was a bit lucky to retain his position.

"It was a little bit of a gambling," De Maar told Cyclingnews. "My teammates had worked all day and I was by myself at the end. The last climb wasn't very steep. It made it difficult to cover every move. I made a little mistake to let Larsson up the road but we came across pretty close. I enjoy this moment as a race leader. I'm one day closer to the victory but tomorrow is the hardest day."