Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) produced a brilliantly timed counter-attack to win stage 7 of Paris-Nice atop the La Madone d'Utelle summit finish.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) opened up the moves with 4.4km to go but after not finding separation from Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and race leader Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), knocked off his effort.
This is when Vlasov struck with 4km remaining and thanks to starting the day 15th on GC and 2:42 off the lead, he was allowed to go and quickly built a lead of more than 15 seconds.
Evenepoel tried to attack again in the group which dropped McNulty, but Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jorgenson, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) were all still with him. The Belgian champion would stop his attacks as Vlasov took victory, forced to settle for second ahead of Roglič in third at the line.
This is Vlasov’s first win since stage 5 of the Tour de Romandie in 2022, over a year and a half ago.
McNulty didn’t completely blow up and managed to hold onto the yellow jersey ahead of the final stage, but did lose significant time to Jorgenson and will only start four seconds ahead of his compatriot on stage 8.
Skjelmose sits third overall at 35 seconds down, with Evenpoel at 36 and Roglič still some distance off the lead 1:21 down. Paris-Nice is nicely poised heading into the always nervous and difficult final stage starting and finishing in Nice.
“I'm really happy to win here. It's a WorldTour stage race and it's one of the most important races and especially [because] these are my training zones and I know these roads. I'm super happy,” Vlasov said immediately after the stage.
“I had a feeling to go today and the plan was to see how the final climb was, or sprint with Primož or maybe I follow some attacks but I found a moment and decided that I could go and I just went.”
Vlasov timed his move to perfection in the cold and rain but admitted the final few kilometres on his own were starting to prove painful.
“It was tough conditions with the rain and cold. I think the last 2 kilometres I was really freezing, my arms were very cold,” Vlasov said. “Also in the beginning luckily I was well dressed so it wasn't so cold for me. The rain and the parcours were pretty tricky.”
Vlasov eventually crossed the line eight seconds ahead of Evenepoel and the group behind, which moved him into the top ten and meant Bora-Hansgrohe got something out of Paris-Nice after a slightly disappointing first week with Primož Roglič.
Tomorrow’s stage is the classic final day in Nice, where more bad weather can be expected on the final GC decider with six tough climbs featuring on the brutally explosive 109.3km route.
How it unfolded
Action on stage 7 of Paris-Nice started before the departure from Nice, with adverse weather on the top of the proposed final climb in Auron forcing organisers to change the route for safety.
The new 104-km route would be tacked with much fewer metres of elevation gain but a GC day was still on the menu with a return to the Madone d'Utelle climb, unused at Paris-Nice since 2016 where Ilnur Zakarin beat Geraint Thomas to the line.
Three men went up the road in cold, wet and grey conditions in the morning, Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), Johan Jacobs (Movistar) and Martijn Tusveld (DSM-Firmenich PostNL).
Their advantage wouldn’t get too far over the first categorised climb of the day, the Côte de Gattières (4.6 km at 4.7%), with another trio chasing to try and form a group of six - Sandy Dujardin (TotalEnergies), Brent Van Moer (Lotto Dstny) and Gijs Leemreize (DSM-Firmenich PostNL).
A series of mechanicals and Ineos Grenadiers pacing behind meant Dujardin, Tusveld and Van Moer were quickly swept up as the rain began to fall even heavier. Leemreize soon followed after some solo kilometres leaving only Thomas and Jacobs out in front.
Soudal-QuickStep and Visma-Lease a Bike soon took over from the British team as the two leaders’ advantage fell below a minute. This would remain the status quo for the majority of the approach to the final climb.
Thomas eventually dropped leaving Jacobs alone in the breakaway, and the Swiss rider was reeled in on the lower slopes of the final climb with 15km to go as Soudal-QuickStep took full control of the peloton.
After 90km of tough build-up in the rain, it was Louis Vervaeke’s tough pace that would be the undoing for the majority of domestiques on other teams.
He led Soudal-QuickStep and Evenepoel up the first eight kilometres of the climb without much challenge until Laurens De Plus and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) took over ahead of the intermediate sprint.
It seemed worth it for the Colombian as this dropped Vervaeke and he gained the maximum six bonus seconds available ahead of Ilan Van Wilder. Evenepoel settled for two before Van Wilder retook the mantle of pacing. Bernal would later get dropped in the final.
Now it was just a matter of when not if for Evenepoel, who had to attack after losing time on GC yesterday to Jorgenson and McNulty. It was with 4.4km that he made his first move, a powerful attack out of the saddle.
This, however, didn’t have the desired effect as when he looked back all he could see was the yellow jersey of McNulty and the white jersey of Jorgenson. This forced the Belgian champion to rethink his tactics and stop the attack.
But during the lull, he was countered by the eventual winning move of Vlasov with 4km to go. The Russian would quickly get five, then ten, then suddenly 20 seconds of an advantage with only the final few slopes left to tackle.
While it was clear Bora-Hansgrohe were going to get their win, Evenepoel wasn’t giving up - attacking again with 2km to go. This did distance McNulty this time, but he had even more company than the first attack.
Roglič, Buitrago and Jorgenson were glued to his back wheel with Skjelmose bridging across from the faltering McNulty just behind. The American wasn’t blowing up completely, however, and actually limited his losses well in the final kilometre.
Evenepoel still had the legs to again win the sprint behind as he did yesterday, but it was again only for second ahead of Roglič, Skjelmose, Jorgenson and Buitrago all at the same time. Next to cross the line was McNulty 27 seconds behind the leader, meaning he kept onto the yellow jersey.
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