April 09, 2011 (Rovaniemi, Finland) – Finnish sprinter Matias Strandvall grabbed the victory over compatriot Lasse Paakkonen and Estonian Kein Einaste. Sweden’s Matti Heikkinen delivered a decent fourth place finish to take over the overall lead at the Tour de Barents.  Starndvall and Einaste are not participating in the Tour. Heikkinen has a 13-second margin over Frenchman Jean-Marc Gaillard and 24.2 seconds ahead of another Frenchman Maurice Manificat. The top five men are within 60 seconds heading into the final stage.

“This was my best sprint this season, but I think I can do better in the future,” said Heikkinen. “ The French will be strong tomorrow, and Lukas Bauer (CZE) is close and will be hard to beat,” commented the current Tour leader. “I’m going to have a big plate of mashed potatoes and reindeer stew. That will do the trick,” he added.

Petra Majdic (SLO) remains unbeatable in the second edition of Tour de Barents winning Stage 3 in Rovaniemi. Majdic took her 3rd stage victory at the Tour dominating classical sprint as she controlled all heats. In the final Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen (2nd) and Slovakia’s Alena Prochazkova (3rd) tried to challenge the FIS Sprint World Cup 2010/11 winner.

“I think I pushed too hard in the semifinal, and I felt tired in the final,” said Majdic. ”I concentrated on tactics in the finals. I followed  Kerttu and Alena and I tried to respond to their speed.”

Majdic extended her lead in Tour de Barents and will have an advantage of +1:12.4 over Niskanen with Prochazkova now in third position at +1:39.0 min behind the leader heading into the final stage.

Tour de Barents concludes tomorrow in Ounusvaara with 8.8km Freestyle final climb.