Marc De Maar (UnitedHealthCare) took a big step towards overall victory in the Tour of Norway when he defended his narrow 3-second lead over Maciej Paterski in yesterday's stage of the Tour of Norway which was the hardest of the race. Like one day earlier, however, he had to rely on other teams to keep things under control and he openly admitted that his teammates were not suited to this kind of hilly racing.

Unitedhealthcare had entered the Tour of Norway with the plan to target stage wins in the sprints and see how far Marc De Maar could come in the overall standings. However, the American team had never imagined that they would have to defend a leader's jersey in the five-day race.

With De Maar's surprise win in stage 2, however, that's the position the team finds themselves in and they have faced a tough ask these last two days when they have been challenged by the two hardest stages of the race. On both days, De Maar has been isolated rather early and has had to rely on other teams to keep the attackers under control.

On stage 3 he was lucky that the break with Gustav Erik Larsson didn't take enough time and yesterday he relied heavily on IAM and CCC to reduce the deficit to the group with eventual winner Bauke Mollema. Hence, he heads into the final stage with his 3-second lead over Maciej Paterski intact and he openly admits that he has had to gamble on other teams keeping things under control.

"To be honest, we have a pretty strong team but not for the mountains," De Maar told Cyclingnews. "My teammates have other qualities and I'll need them tomorrow. We knew I was going to be isolated today, so we saved as much energy as possible.

"It was a bit of a gamble. It was stressful when Paterski attacked. In the last 10 kilometers, we could see the breakaway. At corners, I was counting the time between the two groups. It went well but the race is not over."