BMC Racing Team's Greg Van Avermaet notched his third top 10 finish of the Tour of Qatar Thursday, but it was not enough to keep his place in the overall standings.

Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) won his third stage of the six-day race while Van Avermaet finished ninth and slipped from fourth to fifth overall. Niki Terpstra (Etixx-Quick Step) held onto the overall lead by six seconds ahead of Maciej Bodnar (Tinkoff-Saxo). Van Avermaet is 19 seconds behind with a day of the race to go.

BMC Racing Team's Ben Hermans attacked to ignite a five-man breakaway after 65 km of racing. But after gaining a maximum lead of three minutes, the group was brought back with 15 km to go.

"We were just chasing for more than an hour before we reached the first group," Hermans said. "I saw that they stopped riding and then it is better to go on the attack. If you can' sprint for the victory, it is better to stay in the front and have a good training.

"We had around three minutes. That was not enough for the win but we knew it was just to ride in the front and maybe if there were more splits in the group, we would have been in the first echelon when they joined us without fighting in the back. That was the goal but finally the wind was not strong enough or it came from the wrong direction."