After yesterday’s opening hilly stage, Monday’s action was set to be one for the sprinters at Paris – Nice, although all eyes were on the weather conditions as they rolled out from Thoiry and any potential echelons. Nothing prevailed though and it was a steady day in the saddle with no extended breakaways, while the nerves and pace slowly ramped up in the finale. Holding a good position on the road from 25 kilometres to go, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL worked well as a unit looking to position finisher Fabio Jakobsen for the finale. However, approaching the flamme rouge some other teams took it up on the opposite side of the road and the team got swamped as they cut across the road for the final roundabout. Trying to battle back, the team couldn’t get into position again to go for a top result, with Tobias Lund Andresen leading the team home in 11th place.
Speaking after the stage Jakobsen reflected: “We missed a chance to sprint for the win. We were in a really good position and it was a good job until around one and a half kilometres to go. We just missed out on the acceleration to then be in a good position at the last roundabout. After that I got into the mess, but this is sprinting in Paris – Nice, if you’re not in the first ten you can’t sprint for the win. We lost each other and have to learn from this. It’s unfortunately probably the only pure sprint chance here but there are more to come in the future.”