Stephen Williams wins the Arctic Race of Norway as Clement Champoussin wins photo finish final stage

Stephen Williams has been crowned the winner of the 2023 Arctic Race of Norway as Clement Champoussin took a photo finish win on the final stage.

The final day of racing will take the riders all the way into the North Cape. It's a hilly day, a mix of the previous days, it doesn't include a summit finish but the final few hundred meters are uphill, after two ascents of 4.2Km at 5.5% and 3.1Km at 7.4%.

After winning the Queen stage and taking the leader's jersey, Stephen Williams was looking to defend his lead of just a single second in the general classification over Christian Scaroni.

A big group of fifteen riders formed the day's breakaway. Among them, former leader's jersey wearer Noah Hobbs, and Frederik Dversnes.

As the race reached the penultimate climb of the day, the break still held just over a minute on the peloton but both the lead group and the main bunch were thinning drastically.

At the top of the penultimate climb, a lead group of five held a 1:11 advantage over the peloton with the remnants of the break spread out in the gap in between.

With just under 8km to go and just two riders remaining out front, leader Stephen Williams decided to make a testing attack although ultimately it amounted to nothing.

Despite repeated attempts, neither Williams, Scaroni nor Tobias Johannessen were able to gap the others.

Into the final kilometre and Walter Calzoni, the last remaining breakaway rider, held just a handful of seconds advantage.

As the sprints launched from the peloton, Calzoni was finally caught as a three-way photo finish was needed to decide the victory.

It looked like for the second straight day, Michele Gazzoli would win but right at the line the victory was taken by Clement Champoussin.

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