After two sprint finishes, the Arctic Race of Norway featured its first uphill finish of the week but Team Giant-Alpecin missed out on the top placings as the GC favourites came to the fore. 

With the day’s early breakaway neutralised, the race headed into the final kilometres and the climb to the finish, 3.7kms with an average gradient of 7.8%. With the attacks starting to fly the front group got smaller and smaller, but it wasn’t until Rein Taaramae (Astana) attacked that a move stuck. He looked to be pulling clear before Ben Hermans (BMC) counter attacked from behind and clawed his way up to him. Hermans pushed ahead to take a solo victory three seconds ahead of Taaramae, and with it he takes over the blue jersey of race leader.

Fredrik Ludvigsson was the first home for Team Giant-Alpecin finishing just under a minute behind Hermans in 27th place. He now sits in 20th on GC.

“Our aim was to keep Fredrik as fresh as possible for the final climb, using the guys to ride together the whole day,” explained coach Dirk Reuling. “In the final Fredrik lost his teammates before the climb. Thierry [Hupond] waited for him but Fredrik panicked and jumped on his own to the front. On the clinb he came up short and blew up in last km, finishing 52 seconds down. It’s was good stage for Fredrik to learn more about racing at this level and having the support of the team.”