Hugo Uhl, who set a career high with a stage win at last month's Tour de France, continued his strong form this month, finishing second overall in the Arctic Race in Norway.

The Canadian finished third and fifth in the two toughest stages of the four-day race, moving from 19th overall to the podium.

On Sunday's final stage in Trondheim, he joined the chase group behind the winner of the final stage and race, Andreas Leknesund (Team DSM), but he and his companions, which at one point included three riders from Alpecin-Desseuninck, were failed to do so.

Houle finished in fifth place, 20 seconds behind the Norwegians, and confirmed his second place overall by only 8 seconds. After the race, the Israeli Premier Tech leader said he was very satisfied with his race.

"If you had told me I would finish second, I would have signed up when the race started," Foure told Cycling News behind the podium in Trondheim. [I'm really happy with the way I rode, especially today. I'm really happy with the way I rode today, especially because I saw an opportunity to attack on the second climb, so I decided to go for it. I saw everyone looking at each other and we just went for it. There were three Alpecin Deceunincks and they started pulling. I said, 'Let's give it a try,' and I played my cards right."

"The other leading players couldn't keep up with us.

Houle said he was pleased with how he and his Israeli Premier Tech teammates raced.

Behind Houle, Carl Fredrik Hagen and Christo Neilands were ninth and 12th, respectively, as the team placed another man in the top 10 overall.

"We are happy with how we ran. We had an aggressive race as a team and everyone was good. [We had a good race this week. It was a good week. Everyone at Israel Premier Tech was good. We had a good race today, we had an aggressive race.

And now the challenge for Houle will be to carry his strong summer into the fall.

"There are still days and weeks to go, so right now I want to rest a little bit and try to keep this going as long as possible. The challenge now is to keep that condition. I did well in Switzerland, I did well in the Tour, I did well here, but I'm human and it's hard to stay in that shape."

"Of course, I have the motivation to go home. It's the first time since the Tour de France, so everyone will be looking forward to seeing me, and I've been away from racing for a few years, so it's going to be a great atmosphere."

"I'm really looking forward to being back home and I'm going to train hard and do what I have to do. I can't promise that it will go as well as the Tour, but we'll see."