Anna Christian enjoyed an action-packed few days in the women’s Tour of Norway last week.

The race saw riders tackle four tough stages, beginning with a 141.5-kilometre route from Halden to Sarpsborg.

The Drops-Le Col s/b Tempur star managed to get into a five-rider breakaway that gained four minutes over the peloton.

The Manx woman was also first over the climb of Damholtet which helped put her second overall in the Queen of the Mountains competition.

She then attacked her fellow escapees with 22km to go and was only reeled in on the 6km finishing circuit before crossing the line in 82nd.

No doubt still recovering from her epic ride on stage one, Christian was a similar 83rd place on stage two, some 7min 48sec down on solo winner Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma), who held off the peloton by a few metres.

Her efforts enabled her to remain second in the Queen of the Mountains classification and also 12th in the points.

The third and penultimate stage ended with an 11km climb to a mountain-top finish at Norefjell.

After working hard to protect team leader Joselin Lowden’s GC position of 14th, Anna and her Drops team-mates Emilie Moberg and Sara Penton came home in a 24-strong group at the back of the field 15min down on the winner and new overall leader Annemiek Van Vleuten.

As such, she stayed second in the QoM competition.

The fourth and final stage of the Tour contained two point-scoring climbs for the Queen of the Mountains classification and Christian was fourth over the top in the first ascent at Vamma, adding one more point to her tally.

Unfortunately, she was unable to score on the second climb which allowed Julie Van De Velde (Jumbo-Visma) to take over second and demote Anna to third, but a podium finish in the mountains class against some world class opposition was an excellent result for the Braddan woman.

Olympic champion Van Vleuten (Movistar) won the tour overall.