Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) distanced fellow American Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) during the rain-soaked final stage in the Nice hills to secure overall victory at Paris-Nice.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) won the final stage on the Nice seafront, beating Jorgenson in a two-rider sprint after they cracked McNulty on the Côte de Peille climb with 40 km to race.
They were joined by Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) and the trio surged away from McNulty and a quality chase group. On the final climb of Col des Quatre-Chemins. Vlasov was dropped and Jorgenson and Evenepoel shared the work to ensure the American won overall and the Belgian climbed to second overall.
McNulty finished in a chase group with Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) at 1:39 and so managed to hold onto third overall at 1:47. Evenepoel finished just 30 seconds down on Jorgenson.
Evenepoel celebrated with his new ‘dialed-in’ victory salute but conceded that Jorgensen deserved to win Paris-Nice.
"I should be more than happy with the end of this beautiful week," Evenepoel said after his first-ever victory in France.
"Only one guy could follow me: Matteo. So I think he deserves to win. I went all in three times on the Côte de Peille and he was the only one to follow. Matteo is the deserved winner of the race. If you see two days ago how strong he was in the break and we had to chase him.
"We wanted to set the pace on the Côte de Peille but the bunch split after a nasty crash on the descent before it. Trek smashed it down, while I stayed well positioned."
"When I saw there were only ten or twelve guys left, I told myself I was going to try a few all-out attacks and see what happens. I put some fatigue in a lot of guys and I was suffering too but that’s how you win a race by going ‘all-in.”
Jorgenson was emotional to have won Paris-Nice close to his European home on the Nice seafront. He is only the third rider to win Paris-Nice and the first since Floyd Landis in 2006.
“Until this year, I never would have thought this was possible but here we are,” he said.
“It couldn't have gone any better today and the whole week. It hasn’t sunk in yet to be honest.
“I could barely sleep last night, I was so nervous. For the first time, I felt the pressure. To win and to ride in with a champion like Remco is a special moment.
“It was a complicated scenario this morning with so many possible outcomes. I just had to expect the unexpected and be ready. I knew every single corner of the course and I told the team of three key moments when we needed to stay up front.
“I’m not going to get ahead of myself now. This is a really nice victory and a big achievement in my life. I’m going to enjoy it and keep my feet on the ground."
How it Unfolded
The ever-exciting final stage of Paris-Nice opened up with a three-man breakaway kicking away as the race headed north from Nice, Johan Jacobs (Movistar) who was in yesterday's break alongside Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) and former race leader at this year's Paris-Nice, Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ).
They hit the first climb of the day with around a two-minute lead, but Pithie’s day was soon over as Campenaerts and Jacobs left him behind on the Côte de Levens. Jacobs wouldn’t last much longer with the Belgian soon on his own in front.
The action was bubbling over behind as Christian Scaroni (Astana Qazastan) continued his challenge for KOM points, igniting a bigger move to get away with Laurens De Plus (Ineos Grenadiers) and Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) also wanting to get into the break.
Campenaerts continued his work at the front of proceedings but barely got further than 1:30 ahead of the peloton. From the peloton came an attack led by Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), with the versatile Dane getting ahead of the racing so he could later help team leader Skjelmose.
There was around a 20-strong group following behind the lone leader as the race descended off the first climb towards the Côte de Châteauneuf. This is where disaster would strike for some as stage 4 winner Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), who started the day in 12th overall, hit the deck hard.
Thankfully he was soon back on his feet but did have to abandon the race alongside Kevin Geniets (Groupama-FDJ).
With the crash came a split in the peloton where multiple GC leaders appeared to be without domestiques. Notably Evenepoel and McNulty, with no other Soudal-QuickStep riders present from the group of favourites and the race leader having only Felix Großschartner for company.
This is where Pedersen began his brutal assault of the parcours, moving to the front of the group of favourites, which had joined the group chasing Camepaerts, with 63.8km to go. He would continue pulling all the way to the lower slopes of the Côte de Peille with around 46km to go.
Isolated as mentioned, the 6.5km climb is where Evenepoel decided to take matters into his own hands, attacking not once, not twice but three times on the hardest slopes.
His first two accelerations were well marked by Jorgenson, McNulty and Skjelmose, but after he recharged in the pack and launched his third stinging attack 43km from the line, McNulty was finally distanced.
The yellow jersey wasn’t completely blown up immediately and did have Evenepoel, who was joined by only Jorgenson, in his sights. He had Vlasov with him but the stage 7 winner quickly realised he was stronger and left the American behind.
This is where McNulty lost the race as he slowly dropped back to the chasing group containing Skjelmose and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe). This group would not cooperate well in contrast to Jorgenson and Evenepoel who swapped turns knowing they could both benefit by staying away.
Action up front continued on the Col d’Eze which was tackled from the shorter, easier side, where Jorgenson cleaned up the bonus second sprint ahead of Evenepoel, a sign that he was likely to take the overall victory.
This left it all down to the final climb, the Col des Quatre-Chemins, which topped out at gradients of 15% but was only 3.8km in length. Vlasov would suffer as Evenepoel set a tough pace, but Jorgenson stood firm in the second wheel and closely followed the Belgian up the climb.
Without any inclines left to ascend and only the Promenade des Anglais run-in remaining, it became clear that Jorgenson would win Paris-Nice, the biggest achievement of his young career, but would he battle Evenepoel for the stage win?
The answer was no, as the duo shared conversation in the final 6km and Jorgenson even had time to let out a smile and a fist pump to the camera, knowing what he had achieved. Evenepoel completed the final sprint unchallenged to round out a successful week at Paris-Nice, albeit without overall victory, but with a stage win alongside the green and polka-dot jerseys.
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