An expected, the third sprint stage in five days at Paris-Nice provided what was promised as Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease A Bike) sped to his second victory of the week in Sisteron.
The young Dutchman timed his dash to the line perfectly, waiting until after Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) launched the sprint to blast past and consign the Dane to second place as fast-finishing Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) rounded out the podium in third.
22-year-old Kooij came from behind inside the final 150 metres and was unmatched in terms of speed as he made his push for the line. Ahead of him, Pedersen and Ackermann were neck and neck, but the pair couldn’t hold off Kooij, who sped up the left-hand side of the road from behind the German.
Behind the podium sitters, Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe) rounded out the top five on a day, which saw a notable number of sprint contenders – including Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling), Fabio Jakobsen (DSM Firmenich-PostNL), and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) – left the race.
“It was quite a tough day,” Kooij said after the finish. “With the headwind it was very hard to control a strong breakaway, especially after two guys bridged across. We had to work for it and in the final not many teams had guys left.
“The first day was perfect start and in second sprint we made some mistakes. Today we committed with the whole team and had a great plan. I’m really happy I could take a second stage win of the week," he continued.
“For me it’s been a great week with some huge success. We still have some plans for the weekend with Matteo [Jorgenson] and Wilco [Kelderman], so we’re not done yet.”
Despite missing out on the win, Pedersen came away from the stage with someone to smile about, having overhauled eighth-place finisher Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ) in the points classification to take the lead with 60 points to the New Zealander’s 56.
With the breakaway surviving past the late intermediate sprint on the closing circuit in Sisteron, there’d be no time bonuses for any of the GC contenders, and with a sprint finish there was no separation at the line, either.
Both factors combine to ensure another day in yellow for stage 4 runner-up Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla), who retains his 13-second lead over Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), while Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) retains third at 27 seconds.
How it unfolded
The second half of Paris-Nice got underway with an early and swift battle for the break on stage 5 in Saint-Sauveur-de-Montagut, as a south-eastern 193.5km run lay between the riders and the finish in Sisteron, the gateway to Provence.
Six men made it away inside the opening 10km of the stage, as TotalEnergies pair Sandy Dujardin and Pierre Latour were joined in the move by Mathijs Paasschens (Lotto-Dstny), Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Alexis Gougeard (Cofidis), and Mathias Norsgaard (Movistar).
They’d have four third-category climbs to contend with – the Col de la Sausse, Col de Peyruegue, the Côte de La Rochette-du-Buis, and Col de la Pigière, the last of which lay 47km from the finish line.
With sprint squads keen to control the day ahead of another expected bunch finish, the eight-man break was only permitted to race 2:30 up the road, their advantage never really extending much further than that on the long day in the saddle.
A selection of the sprinter’s teams led the way in the peloton, with De Kleijn, Kooij, and Pedersen among those taking charge.
Out front, it was Latour who outlined his team’s intentions to protect Mathieu Burgaudeau’s polka dot climber’s jersey, leading the way over each hill to grab 15 points and prevent his breakmates from challenging his teammate’s 28 points.
Behind, several of the sprinter’s teams found themselves less inclined to put in the work after a trio of fast finishers climbed off the bike. De Kleijn, Jakobsen, Groves, and Julius van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) joined stage 4 retirees Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny) in heading home.
There was little other action to report until the Col de Peyruegue at 84km out. There, Lotto-Dstny pair Victor Campenaerts and Pascal Eenkhoorn decided to make a move from the peloton, which at that point lay under a minute down on the breakaway.
They’d make it across in short order to make it eight up front and strengthen the move hoping against hope to hold off the peloton and contest the win among themselves.
Latour duly collected the maximum mountain points the rest of the way before the riders commenced the fast, descending road towards the final, unclassified hills on the closing circuit in Sisteron.
The gap gradually came down on that run as Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease A Bike and Jayco-AlUla (for Dylan Groenewegen) did the work behind, while on the front of the break Campenaerts’ high pace would see the move fall apart inside the final 30km.
Gougeard was among those dropped along with Eenkhoorn and Paasschens, though Eenkhoorn would make it back on thanks to the efforts of his teammate. Latour would fall away a handful of kilometres later, leaving five riders racing into the final 20km with their advantage quickly falling to 20 seconds and less.
They battled on towards the day’s intermediate sprint at the first passage of the finish in Sisteron, holding an eight-second lead at the sprint and preventing any GC hopefuls from snaffling up the bonus seconds in the process.
As the road continued climbing through the town, an attack led by Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) and Bob Jungels (Bora-Hansgrohe) put paid to the break, though none of the movers managed to separate themselves from the peloton.
Another move shortly afterwards was a little more successful, drawing out Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), though nothing would come of it and the peloton once again set up for a sprint heading into the final 5km.
The likes of Groupama-FDJ, Israel-Premier Tech, and Lidl-Trek flowed to the front on the run back to Sisteron, while Tudor, without their main sprinter but now looking towards veteran Matteo Trentin, hit the front at 2km to go.
In the end, however, it was Lidl-Trek who organised the best lead out with Ryan Gibbons pulling off as the last man to deliver Pedersen to the sprint. He couldn’t match the finishing pace of Kooij, however, leaving the third-year pro to come through and take the 32nd victory of his career.
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