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The victory is the 22-year-old Norwegian's first ever pro victory after winning a decisive group sprint ahead of Stage 2 winner Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious).
Milan’s second place on the stage moved him into the leader’s Green jersey and the sprinter’s jersey, while keeping hold of the best young rider jersey. Cees Bol (Astana Qazaqstan) finished the stage in third and now sits in second place on the GC.
The 159km stage from Al Manshiya to Abu Rakah had riders fighting once again through headwinds and crosswinds. A breakaway was allowed to go clear and achieved a maximum gap of eight minutes before being reeled back in by the bunch behind.
While the stage was mostly flat, a one-kilometre climb in the finale was the only obstacle away from another bunch sprint.
As the peloton got to the foot of the climb, an early attack was launched by Pascal Ackermann (UAE Emirates), followed by Zdenek Stybar (Jayco AlUla), who went over the top of Pascal.
Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) followed the attack, but with a headwind on the final stretch down to the finish, it made it hard for anyone to get away. A small group of riders who managed to stay mostly in touch over the climb came back together for a sprint.
Milan launched his sprint early, but Waerenskjold, supported by a two-man lead out, beat Milan to the line.
"I have waited for this for some time," said Waerenskjold. "I've been good in the Under-23 class but hadn't managed to take a pro win, so this is really fantastic.
"I knew when the guys went really hard on the bottom of the climb I couldn't follow. So I surfed a bit on the peloton to save myself for a sprint.
"We did it perfectly. Today we took the right-hand side (of the road). Finally, we got the wind from the left so we got less wind compared to yesterday when we did really bad at the end. We learned from that and today we did it."
Milan also described the wind as a defining factor of the stage.
“This stage was quite hard as well, with a lot of wind and crosswinds,” Milan said.
“I started my sprint with 200 metres to go, but Soren was faster than me, so congratulations to him. I’m really happy with the leader’s jersey.
“Tomorrow is a crucial stage for our GC rider, Santiago, so we’ll look out for him.”
Stage 4 features 163.4 kilometres of flat terrain, with the exception of a short and steep climb before a final 8.6 kilometres on the flat again to the finish at Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid.
Catch the action with live coverage via SBS On Demand from 10:30pm (AEDT).
