Quick-Step Floors will head into the final day of the event ranked fifth overall.
Hammer Stavanger resumed Saturday afternoon with Hammer Sprint, fought over 10 laps of an undulating 9.2km-long circuit, which proved to be a test of teamwork, tactics and strength, as attacks came thick and fast as soon as the flag was waved and several men plugged away.
After they got reeled in, Fabio Jakobsen and Davide Martinelli were the first Quick-Step Floors riders to collect points at the end of lap two, before the pace intensified and the peloton got split; that led to ten riders extricate themselves from the pack, and with most of the teams represented in that move, this slowed down the chase and allowed the attackers to forge a 35-second gap.
Ronde van Vlaanderen champion Niki Terpstra was there and got involved in most of the sprints, contributing with a major haul of points to Quick-Step Floors' total at the end of the day, which concluded with the win of Mitchelton-Scott. Terpstra – our highest-ranked rider in the World Tour individual classification – put the hammer down on several occasions and stayed in the front until the last lap, where the group was swarmed by the peloton.
In the tenth and last sprint of the race, just as everything came back together, it was James Knox the one who bagged in more points for the squad, which finished fifth in the standings on the day, same position our riders have in the general classification having amassed 971 points in the past two days, with one race left, the 48.7km-long team time trial Hammer Chase.
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen/ Getty Images
