Paris-Nice Stage 1 Recap

One of the most anticipated spring races, Paris-Nice kicked off with a starting list that is full of stars to watch. For the GC, you have Jonas Vingeggard as the big favorite along with his teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, who won this race last year. Other contenders for the podium include Joao Almeida, Ben O'Conner, and Maximillian Schachmann, a two-time winner of this race. We also have sprinters like Tim Merlier and Mads Pedersen who are going for sprint stage wins.

Stage 1 was a pretty flat route, only 4000 ft of climbing, but in this race there is no easy stages due to the early stages could be a great time to send it in the cross winds if the opportunity is right. There is was also a sprint point with 9 km to go with time bonuses of 6,4, and 2 seconds for the first 3 riders to cross that point. Of course, there was also a leaders jersey up for grabs.

The cameras turned on with 78km to go with a 3 man breakaway that wasn't getting much of a leash with the gap holding stable at around a minute. Alexander Delettre was going for KOM points so he could get the mountain jersey for tomorrow. It was mostly Trek, and Visma- Lease a Bike who was controlling the tempo in the peloton making sure to keep their leaders out of trouble.

With around 55km to go the break was caught and it was going to be a huge fight for positioning the entire rest of the race. The wind was only 2 mph today so no team really tried to send it. In this race though anything can happen as with 49km to go there was a crash due to road construction that involved 3 members of the Ineos Squad. Luckily, Joshua Tarling is one of the best time trialists in the world and brought his other teammates back into the peloton.

The race started to really kick off with 20.8 km to go with Julian Alaphalipe going on the offensive with only Matteo Jorgenson able to follow the move initially. This also dropped sprinters that were chilling in the back of the peloton. This lead to Jhonathan Narveaz to take 6 bonus seconds over the top of the climb. Matteo Jorgenson took 4 seconds and Flordian Lipowitz took 2 seconds.

There was a counter move over the top that involved Matteo Trientin, Joshua Tarling, but Mattias Skejlmose was in the group and wasn't contributing so it eventually came back with 2.7km for the inevitable sprint to the line.

Soudal Quickstep had their whole lead out train to lead out Tim Merlier to victory they had positioning right at the front of the peloton and they kept the tempo nice and high. With 250m to go, Soudal- Quick-step dropped off Tim Merlier and he ended up winning stage 1 for his 5th win of the season for him.

No GC contender lost any time today and with Stage 2 being an even flatter stage then today's stage. Tomorrow should be another day for the sprinters with Tim Meriler as the favorite once again. Who will try to spoil the sprinter's party? Find out tomorrow.