Tinkoff-Saxo headed into today's first ever summit finish in the Tour of Norway hoping to excel with its climbers Jesper Hansen and Edward Beltran. Despite repeated attacks, however, the final climb proved to be too easy to make a difference.

Today’s 177 kilometer long third stage between Årnes and Budor was the first mountain test for the peloton in the Tour of Norway and even though a breakaway was established early on, the big teams wanted a piece of the cake today as they were denied yesterday.

Five riders formed the long-lasting breakaway of the day and as they threatened to take the stage, Tinkoff-Saxo moved to the front and started dragging them back. The pace completely shattered the peloton and riders were dropped in small groups. But two riders managed to break clear and bridge the gap to the front group and now, seven riders were rocketing towards the uphill finish while the peloton were counting no more than about 25 riders including Tinkoff-Saxo’s Jesper Hansen and Edward Beltran.

Gustav Larsson (IAM) was the big motor in the lead group and he managed to explode the group once again but Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin) hung on to his wheel along with teammate Stef Clement. On the final meters, Vanmarcke opened the sprint and took a convincing stage win ahead of Larsson.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Jesper Hansen and Edward Beltran finished in the chase group.

“With two climbs in the finale, we had hoped for a better result but as we entered the finale, the climbs weren’t steep enough to make a difference for us. Edward launched a few attacks but it was too easy to hang on to his wheel because of the lack of gradient. But tomorrow’s stage looks pretty promising. The climbs is ten kilometers long and a bit steeper so we’re hoping that both Jesper and Edward will show their skills there,” commented DS, Tristan Hoffman after the stage.

Marc de Maar retained the overall lead.