Paris Nice 2022

Van Aert and Roglič yielded stage honours and the first yellow jersey of the race to Laporte, a new signing from Cofidis. Roglič is already in a very strong ...

Simon Yates (BikeExchange), Sam Bennett and Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hangrohe) are in the second group, a handful of seconds down on the leaders. A crash at the rear of that group sees Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) and Rohan Dennis (Jumbo-Visma) among the fallers, and they face a grim battle to chase back on. There was a brief détente in the yellow jersey group after Vlasov, Simon Yates and Haig got back on, as everybody took the opportunity to feed ahead of the finale. Gilbert, Holmes and Gougeard are into the final 100km with a lead of almos tsix minutes, but it's hard to shake off the sense that this could be the calm before the storm in the peloton. On that occasion in Nangins, Andrei Tchmil managed to beat the odds and the Rabobank pairing of Markus Zberg and Leon van Bon in the sprint, but the day laid the foundations for Michael Boogerd's eventual overall victory. Some early aggression from Lotto Soudal, as Philippe Gilbert and Matthew Holmes slip off the front in the company of Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM). This trio has a lead of 20 or so seconds over the peloton. Gilbert, incidentally, was the best placed of the escapees on GC overnight, lying 2:14 off Laporte, and the Belgian is the maillot jaune virtuel. The European champion was distanced on the run-in to the finish yesterday and his team announced this morning that he is out of the race due to bronchitis. Holmes is first over the Côte des 17 tournants, with Gilbert sweeping up behind in second and Gougeard in third. The summit of the category 3 Côte des 17 Tournants (1.4km at 5%) is just 9.6km into the stage. The peloton must also withstand the seemingly overwhelming force of Jumbo-Visma, who began bending Paris-Nice to their will with a startling show of strength in the finale on Sunday, when Christophe Laporte, Wout van Aert and Primož Roglič simply rode clear of the peloton and team time trialled to the finish, coming home 19 seconds up on Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) and at least 22 seconds ahead of everybody else. The roads are exposed on the run-in, however, and there are plenty of changes in direction, too.

The Dutch team not only won the first stage of the race with new signing Christophe Laporte but a late-race move resulted in a three-rider break containing ...

While Van Aert, Laporte and Roglič seamless rode together the peloton lost more and more time. The pace going into the climb and the attack from Laporte left the peloton strung out and discombobulated. Jumbo-Visma came to Paris-Nice with the race favourite Primož Roglič and didn’t waste time proving a point.