A hilly 193 kilometre stage from Saint-Sauveur-de-Montagut to Sisteron awaited the peloton today at Paris – Nice. It was an aggressive start to the stage with a strong break eventually forming, but over the hills two more riders jumped from the bunch to join them, making for a hard and fast pace. Unfortunately, both Fabio Jakobsen and Julius van den Berg had to step off the bike due to illness during the stage. The team then rallied around each other for the finale, with Nils Eekhoff and Tobias Lund Andresen towards the fore as the bunch charged towrads the sprint. Lund Andresen had to check his effort at 300 metres to go as he was moving up, before launching a strong sprint in which he squeezed his way through a gap and finished fast, ultimately crossing the line in sixth place.
Speaking after the stage Lund Andresen said: “In a WorldTour peloton like here everyone is really strong, so they can afford to go into the wind a bit more than in other races. It makes the sprints pretty crazy. The plan was originally to go with Fabio today. We’re really eager to make it work and I really want to win with him, but he unfortunately dropped out in the stage. It was then over to me and Nils, who also has good legs, for the finish. I felt very good today. It’s just a shame that I got caught up in some of the chaos in the sprint, although I think everyone did at some point, as otherwise I think we could have maybe finished on the podium in the end.”