Despite the cold weather in the far north of Norway, Stevie Williams showed he is in red-hot form, wrapping up the General Classification at the Arctic Tour of Norway, after finishing tenth on the final stage to Havøysund. Dylan Teuns also finished strongly in the General Classification, taking fifth overall, and riding to eighth on the day.
With Williams’ lead sitting at only one second coming into the final stage, there were plenty of attacks towards the finish. However, he coped well under the extra pressure, following the moves and keeping calm. Teuns remained active in the main group, covering surges and even rolling the dice for his own chances, before sprinting to a solid eighth place on the line, being led out by Marco Frigo. With IPT in such great form, the riders also managed to win the overall team classification, driving home the overall performance of the team in this race, not just the individual displays from Teuns and Williams.
Williams was happy to be back winning, especially as it is his debut overall race win for IPT following his stage win on Saturday.
“I’m really happy to be the winner of this race, the guys rode amazing all day, honestly. The way the guys held that break at two minutes and thirty seconds all day, with sixteen guys in front was incredible, and to finish it off today, and yesterday’s stage win, it couldn’t have gone better. It has been a great week for us!”
“I think as a team we did perfectly to finish this off and secure the overall victory,” says Teuns, pointing out that this was a true team victory.
Sports Director, Steve Bauer, was delighted with not only Williams’ performance but also that of the whole team.
“It was a great ride by Stevie, he’s only going to get stronger now. I couldn’t ask for much more from him. We had a good plan and we needed to control the race today, and we did super well. It was definitely not a foregone conclusion coming into stage 4, as we knew there would be attacks, and towards the end it got complicated with time bonuses on the line, but the cards fell for us. Both Stevie and Dylan were good enough to win the race, and now they’re both only getting better. It was a great ride, so congratulations to them and the whole team.”
