Tom Dumoulin defended his leader's jersey in yesterday's stage of the Tour of Alberta and now goes into the queen stage with an 8-second lead. Feeling strong on the climbs, the Dutchman is confident in his chances.

Jonas Ahlstrand sprinted to 12th place on the penultimate stage of the Tour of Alberta, a stage that featured several rough-road sections known as “Canadian Pavé”. Tom Dumoulin finished safely in the front group to defend his overall lead ahead of the final stage tomorrow.

For the first time in the race the early break was allowed to pull away and start to build a lead over the peloton. Six riders got clear and built up over four minutes but with 25km to go they held just 1’40″ over the fast chasing bunch after Team Giant-Shimano had controlled the day.

With 10km to go the gap was whittled down to just 30 seconds under the impetus of other sprinters teams as riders tried to split the peloton but all was set for a bunch sprint for which the team’s lead-out did not quite come together to set up Ahlstrand as desired.

Tomorrow’s final stage is based around 11 laps of a rolling 11km circuit that will test the team and Dumoulin but they will be ready for the challenge.

“It’s gonna be really hard,” Dumoulin said of the final stage. “… A lot of guys are within 30 seconds and 40 seconds, so I expect an aggressive race tomorrow. But we have a good team for that, and I’m really, really doing well in the hills. So I think it won’t be a problem.”

Team coach Aike Visbeek also said: “It was a nervous day out there today on the pavé and gravel roads. We were always in a good position though. After controlling the race the lead-out for Jonas at the end was lacking some firepower but we kept the overall lead and have just one stage to go now. It will be a tight race tomorrow with the small time gaps but Tom is riding strongly and everyone is riding well in defence of the jersey.”