All the spring classics have their charms and Sunday’s Ronde van Vlaanderen is notable as a national event. No other country cherishes road racing like Belgium and huge numbers will be out along the route.

Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar meet again, this time with Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel as contenders and also home hopes for the crowds as no Belgian has been on the podium since 2021 and the last home winner was Gilbert in 2017.

The Course: 279km. The start is moved from Brugge to Antwerp, swapping one swank Hanseatic market square for another, with 125km of largely tarmac roads to get to Oudenaarde where the race will finish later on.

From there the race loops around like a bowl of spaghetti as the cobbles and climb come fast. After 150km it’s the Eikenberg chased by the Holleweg cobbled sector and then the Wolvenberg, this triple should mark the “opening” of the race.

The Oude Kwaremont is climbed three times. A 2.2km climb which makes it so different to all the other short ramps, it’s steep at the start before dragging up past the tented hospitality zone. It’s chased by the Paterberg which is short but overcompensates with a 20% slope and brutal stones.

The Koppenberg is the infamous climb that is now reserved only for the Ronde, no other spring classic uses it. All these mark the highlights of the course but there are small small roads, tight junctions and other points. Watch out for the Hotond-Kruisberg as it’s the literal highpoint of the race at 158m and often causes damage with just over 20km to go, it may not see the winning move but look for signs of fatigue.

The Finish: a final time up Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg combo and the gradual descent and then that long road into the outskirts of Oudenaarde for a flat finish. A determined chase behind can bring back any escapees but it relies on riders with energy left and the willingness to collaborate.

The Contenders

Tadej Pogačar and his UAE team know how to win this. He’s won the last two editions he’s started in the same manner. His team mates toil like commis with meat tenderisers, hammering the peloton with a pace that saps everyone for hours until Pogačar uses his comparative advantage on the Oude Kwaremont, the longest climb, to ride away. Easier said than done, especially as everyone is expecting the move. But this obliges others to make their moves before he does and expose themselves, notable in a spring when the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert have gone solo only to be recaptured by the peloton. Florian Vermeersch has been very strong this season but likely to deliver the final blow to the peloton like Tim Wellens did for the team in the past but overall the team have a very strong squad that will try to control everything.

Embed from Getty Images

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) had been on the podium of every spring classic in Belgium he’d started since 2021 until last Sunday’s Wevelgem where he and Wout van Aert were up the road and looked likely to duel for the win… only to get caught. The anecdote could be telling as he was almost caught in last Sunday’s E3 race too, if only to suggest he’s not monopolising races right now, is his form dipping? If you like other stats then he’s on the eve of a fourth win in the Ronde, a feat unachieved so far and if he does it on Sunday, he’ll be the first to do the Omloop-Ronde double. Can get he ahead of Pogačar, or match him in the finale? He can master the course and his sprint and clarity of mind in the finish of a race are excellent.

Embed from Getty Images

A surprise starter, the reverse April Fool’s by Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull) raises expectations. The co-ordinated media release earlier this week announcing his participation showed it’s all part of a plan, rather than being a late starter for the fun of it. His campaign even asked “Flanders are you ready?”, as opposed to him being ready. The form hasn’t looked scintillating, recently conceding two minutes to Jonas Vingegaard on his way to 6th overall in Catalunya. But what if this was the plan and he’s sacrificed climbing to be beefier for Sunday and his close sprint with Dorian Godon and the crosswind move with Vingegaard were the signals and not noise? His weakness is positioning in the hectic moments going into key points but has a team that’s been searching for a leader. His best point is he can win from anywhere, give him ten metres and he could be away for the day and his sprinting is now very strong.

Embed from Getty Images

Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB) is back to being a contender but how to win? He seems able to buy an option on the finish, and were he to arrive in the final kilometre with the names cited above already he may not be the first pick but he’d have a chance; similarly across a range of other scenarios especially as some day luck has to go his way, maybe it’ll be rivals who touch wheels on the Koppenberg and stall leaving him space? The dry conditions won’t help as they remove some randomness. The team are strong and have options with Christophe Laporte and Per Strand Hagenes but they’re difficult cards to play, their central case rests on getting Van Aert into a podium position.

Are there other contenders? It does feel like one of the four cited above is going to be on the top step of the podium. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) ought to be named among the best but his injury comeback has left him visibly short of form and the sense that he might need more time, that Roubaix suits more but he’s got nothing to lose.

Embed from Getty Images

By now we’re into riders and indeed whole teams hoping to anticipate events and even then how to get, say, fifth place? Bahrain’s best rider in the classics has been Alec Segaert but this is a much hillier course than he’d like. By contrast Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) will prefer this but he’s making his cobbled classics debut and a top-10 would be reasonable. Uno-X have been active this spring and Jonas Abrahamsen could try to anticipate events.

Soudal-Quickstep have been more discreet this spring and this is a problem for the reset and refocus on the spring classics as if they haven’t won a semi-classic by now then it’s not going to be easier this weekend or next. Dylan van Baarle and Jasper Stuyven bring experience but these days being wise doesn’t count for what it used to. It still matters, Paul Magnier says he punctured in last Sunday’s Wevelgem because he didn’t pay attention to the course and slammed his wheel into a pothole.

Ineos lack a leader at the top of the team but have options, they’ll want to get ahead of matters and you can probably sort the rest of the teams by how early they’ll try to move right down to Flanders-Baloise and Burgos-Burgpellet-BH who’ll both want to have two riders or more in the morning move.

	Pogačar
	Van der Poel
	Van Aert, Evenepoel
	–
	Laporte, PSH, Pedersen, Abrahamsen, F Vermeersch

Weather: cloudy with a strong chance of light rain later on, 11°C. A westerly wind of 25km/h is sufficient to become tactical and even open up the bunch. It means a tailwind to the finish line after the Paterberg.

TV: live from start to finish on Sporza/Een for locals in Flanders, and Eurosport and Flobikes internationally. The start is at 10.00 CEST and the finish is forecast for 4.30pm CEST. Tune in around 3.30pm to get the penultimate Kwaremont-Paterberg combo and the only time up the Koppenberg.

As an aside there’s a new website coursedujour.com which lists or can email you each morning what races are on and where the TV coverage can be found. It looks useful. No affiliation but the creator David has helped check the software that runs this site.

Women’s Ronde
ProcyclingUK has a recommended preview with almost everything except the timings… the finish is due around 5.30pm CEST. Lotte Kopecky is the obvious pick with several contenders.

The post Ronde van Vlaanderen Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Dwaars door Vlaanderen is today, its name is literally “Across Flanders” only it covers a tiny portion of Flanders. Similarly this Sunday’s Ronde van Vlaanderen doesn’t tour much of Flanders, instead it loops around a very small part of the region. As do many of the other spring classics.

The map above shows Belgium within the thick green national border and the Flanders-Wallonia border running east-west, as well as the circle of Brussels.

The red lines are the routes of all the events organised by Flanders Classics (Omloop Nieuwsblad, Ronde van Brugge, In Flanders Fields/Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Scheldeprijs, Ronde van Limburg, Brabantse Pijl with the last four using last year’s routes as the source data as this year’s races have yet to happen).

The other races are the independently run Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in dark purple, the Nokere Koerse is light purple while pink is the E3 Saxo Classic route, light blue for the Koksijde Classic and dark blue for the GP Monsére.

You might prefer to see each race in a different colour. But the point here is not to differentiate each course more to show how many overlap. It’s less a map and more a bowl of spaghetti. Trying different colours actually doesn’t work well because so many overlap.

As you can see a lot of Flanders isn’t visited by the major bike races, plenty of Flemish residents don’t exactly have a spring classic on their doorstep. The Scheldeprijs might be around Antwerp to the north but has plenty of the course in the Netherlands.

Look at the map again and this time there’s an added yellow rectangle. This measures 30km by 20km. Inside it sit most of the Omloop, Kuurne, Nokere, E3, Dwaars and Ronde routes. It’s here that sit many of the famous climbs, think of the Paterberg, Oude Kwaremont, Taaienberg and Molenberg.

The screenshot from Dwars door Vlaanderen today includes a white line, that’s the Nokere Koerse finish painted on the road from a few weeks ago. It’s why the guy with the “LUC” sign can appear so many times along the course of a race.

The image above zooms in on the same 30km by 20km zone. A lot of races within this area overlap. There can be cobbled sectors taken one direction that are reversed in another race but often there’s only one right way. Nobody wants to race down the Paterberg.

By themselves most of these climbs are modest, the Taaienberg can often be crucial but it is about 600m long and lasts just over a minute in these races. It’s the accumulation and distance that’s needed.

Geography means some races have few features to break up the peloton unless the wind is blowing. A sprint finish can be thrilling but the ride to get their can feel processional for TV viewers. Since the last decade many race organisers, including plenty outside of Flanders, have sought to add more obstacles and jeopardy in order to make the TV experience more lively.

So in Flanders organisers head for the hills and concoct a course designed to tackle as many climbs and cobbles as possible and most of these are in a relatively small area, sometimes branded the heuvelzone, the “hill zone”. The twisting and turning to achieve this compounds matters as races zig and zag through corners and junctions.

It used to be thought that learning the lie of the land was an advantage in racing, knowing where a road widened and allowed you to overtake before a key climb or cobbled sector could save energy. Now a lot of this lore has been mapped.

There’s now familiarity for riders and spectators alike. The current Omloop Nieuwsblad finale has the same route as the old Ronde. Meanwhile the current Ronde has the same Oude Kwaremont-Paterberg-finish in Oudenaarde since 2014 now and feels very much like a known quantity

Conclusion
Many of the Flemish classics take place in a small area and the same roads get criss-crossed? It’s no secret and obvious to many. But this post just puts all the Flemish classics onto the same map to visualise this.

The post Touring Flanders? first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Tadej Pogačar launches his sprint with 200m to go. Tom Pidcock looks to the right but there’s no room and he moves to the left and almost gets on terms but he’s half a length short as they throw their bikes to the line. After 289km there’s half a wheel it in.

Embed from Getty Images

The early breakaway formed quickly, only for the lead vehicles to go off-course, taking the riders into parked traffic. Anecdotal, yes but a copycat move was allowed to go clear moments later which was notable because it showed how it suited everyone.

Like previous editions this was another “Noah’s Ark breakaway” with team mates going in two by two: two each from Movistar, Bardiani, Novo Nordisk and Polti-Malta, plus a lonely Picnic-PostNL rider in Alexey Faure-Prost.

Embed from Getty Images

Behind Orluis Aular of Movistar and UAE’s Jan Christen crashed after about 30km, the latter breaking his collarbone. Given UAE were without Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narvaez because of injury did losing a key rider early give Pogačar thoughts it might not be his day? The gods were out to test him already.

Embed from Getty Images

Alpecin-PremierTech’s Silvan Dillier led the chase with 285km to go and the Swiss Stakhanovite was seemingly on the front for the next 200km. Perhaps he looked back one or twice but there were no flicking elbows or other body language despite other teams getting a free ride. His work was solid but he was one against nine riders. The escapees began to gain time and they doubled their lead from three minutes to six on the Via Aurelia coastal road. UAE’s Domen Novak took over with just over 80km left.

Soon teams were riding in train formation to hold their leaders in position. Ineos had a collective crash but Filippo Ganna just avoided the trouble before the Capo Mele.

With the capes cleared, the breakaway was down to four as they passed the fountain in Imperia. Moments later on the way out of Oneglia Pogačar crashed. We’ll put the blame and inquisition aside as nobody seemed to make a grave fault. Pogačar was first to go down, sliding across the road and taking out others like a scythe through grass.

Normally a fall in Sanremo means game over. However if this was a disaster it wasn’t a catastrophe. Pogačar had the good fortune not to be injured and his bike was still rideable, unlike Wout van Aert’s machine. Up in seconds he had team mates ready to lead the chase. Plus if his clothing was ripped leaving his white shorts halfway to a sumo mawashi when viewed from the left he retained enough dignity to continue as the tail of the peloton rode away.

Van der Poel was also caught in the crash but lost less time and was in the first chase group. Pogačar was in the next group behind with Domen Nowak, Felix Großschartner and Florian Vermeersch burning themselves up to chase back through the convoy.

The breakaway was caught at the foot of the Cipressa just as Pogačar made it to the back. Back but a long way back, the TV caption had him at 17 seconds. There was no time to lose and Brandon McNulty led him through the group, the pair passing rivals like they were hobbyists in the Pogi Challenge. In just a kilometre they made it to the front. Suddenly the plan was back on. McNulty used up his last reserves and soon Isaac Del Toro appeared and accelerated hard to stretch out the group.

Pogačar attacked. Pidcock was right on his wheel. One wheel behind Filippo Ganna was in trouble, his head dipping and elbows jutting out like he was pushing an overloaded wheelbarrow as Van der Poel came around him. Mads Pedersen stomped on the pedals to stay in contact but blew in seconds.

In the space of 25 pedal strokes Pogačar was clear with Pidcock and Van der Poel. The rest were left repaying their oxygen debts and by Cipressa church tower the chasers were 25 seconds down.

There were strange moments of calm now. The Cipressa attack as theory was working in practice again and the trio began to collaborate, but the alliance was tentative. The tension rose as Lidl-Trek had numbers and Visma-LAB’s Victor Campenaerts joined in the pursuit and gap fell. The trio started to look back, often the prelude to surrender. The half minute cushion was reduced to a threadbare eight seconds at the foot of the Poggio.

The gap closed further. Excuse the low-fi graphics above but inside the red circle you can just see a speck of white casting shadow on the wall: Pogačar. In the blue circle is the front of the bunch and there’s about six seconds in it here, even less than the TV graphic suggests.

Pogačar rose up and accelerated. Pidcock followed but Van der Poel stayed seated and was now beaten. For a brief moment at least six motos were within 50 metres of the two leaders which helped, but behind who was left to chase? At the top of the Poggio the pair had 15 seconds on the 40 or so peloton with Van der Poel still in between. By the foot of the descent the two had 20 seconds. Pogačar was doing most of the work, Pidcock seemingly all in for the win rather than guaranteeing second place by sharing the work.

Andrea Bagioli did a final pull in the streets of Sanremo for the peloton which helped catch Van der Poel. By now there was almost nobody left to chase. Sensing this Wout van Aert attacked with 1.5km to go and started to close in.

Pidcock flicked his elbow before the flamme rouge and a Pogačar came through to ensure they stayed away and Pidcock sat on. Van Aert was closing in and each time Pogačar glanced back he seemed to check the incoming Belgian more than Pidcock on his wheel.

With 200m to go Pogačar looked over his left shoulder one last time then launched his sprint. Pidcock seemed to point his front wheel right but there was little room by the barriers. He began to get on terms with Pogačar with 50m to go but his front wheel was weaving in a ragged sprint while Pogačar was powering straight and as both lunged it was Pogačar who won by half a wheel.

The Verdict
This time the action came even earlier than the Cipressa with Pogačar’s crash and chase. Milan-Sanremo was this blog’s first pick among the highlights of last season and 2026 topped it, a thriller with added layers of tension and drama.

Milan-Sanremo is famous for the trance-like finish. It may never reach boiling point from the start like a golden Tour stage could, nor even with 100km to go like a vintage Paris-Roubaix. But the intensity of the final 35km was as good as it gets because so much was happening, much of it with the most slender of margins.

Pogačar as the strongest rider on the day and winning may not sound like news. This was different, a frenetic finale. Replay the final kilometre in a simulation and Pidcock could have won and his distant stare on the podium seemed to suggest he knew it. This gave suspense all the way to the line, especially as Pidcock was not sharing the work 50-50 and so might have something left. The 30 second advantage on the Cipressa was reduced to less than ten seconds by the Poggio and Van Aert was just four seconds behind by the finish.

Pogačar’s crash defined the day. Without it maybe he could have gone solo over the Cipressa? However strong that would have been too easy. Philippe Brunel wrote for L’Equipe for 40 years, becoming the lead cycling writer. Having seen Merckx, Hinault et al he often honed his definition of a champion and it someone who can win against the odds, able to turn an unfavourable situation to their advantage and win from it.

Pogačar’s crash wasn’t ruinous in a race where the smallest mishaps and hesitations often define the outcome but his chances did look cooked. Is it his greatest win? That’s subjective, the Zürich Worlds of 2024 was audacious for attacking with 100km to go; he monopolised the 2024 Tour de France; a Liege-Bastogne-Liege win was dedicated to the memorial of Urska Zigart’s mother. Sanremo seemed to mean plenty and despite 110 career wins with five grand tours and now an 11th Monument for once he looked stunned and even tearful.

Many a rider living on the Côte d’Azur has been lured to the Poggio hundreds of times, condemned to climb it like Sisyphus while their dreams up its slopes. Most – think of Peter Sagan, Caleb Ewan or Michael Matthews – try and never win. This is a deliverance for Pogačar who no longer has to go back; even if he was that vindictive there’s no realistic way to overhaul Merckx’s seven wins. This brings a touch of melancholy here for who else is willing to plunge the detonator on the Cipressa next year?

Pro cycling has the habit of asking what a rider can do next. Win, and usually before the finish arch has been dismantled, the triumph is banked and questions tun to “what can you do next?”. A fifth Tour de France awaits and one day there’s the Vuelta and Olympics to collect, goals that no matter how special feel expected. The only question left is whether he can really win Paris-Roubaix?

The post The Moment Milan-Sanremo Was Won first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The charm of bike racing is that the strongest rider does not always win. Skill, tactics and sheer good luck play a role. Especially in Milan-Sanremo.

The race has evolved over the years and now in its 117th edition there is a change. Tadej Pogačar’s moves on the Cipressa have opened up the race and created a new version where the rules, scenarios and habits of recent years have been revised but the new script is not settled. If he goes again should rivals follow or wait. Stick or twist?

The Course
The same and why change a winning formula? While some races keep adding more climbs or cobbles, the balance here feels perfect as it theoretically allows everyone a shot at glory, it’s gone to grand tour winners and sprinters this century. But of late the race has excluded the pure sprinters, it is probably beyond the reach of a Mark Cavendish today, or Tim Merlier were he to start today.

There’s 125km on the Pianura Padana, past rice fields and across the plains to Ovada. Here the Turchino pass starts. The race takes the old road up and the average gradient is a measly 1.5% if you like your stats, if you prefer anecdotes a regular railway runs alongside. But there are some steeper moments and at it kicks up at the top.

The descent is different: shorter, steeper and with plenty of hairpin bends to describe the technical aspect. There’s a different feel too, the way up was cold and austere, the descent sashays down to a Mediterranean playground of palm trees, beaches and cruise liners.

Once on the coastal road there’s often a last moment to go back to the team car or stop by the road to remove clothing. There’s 80km to the first of the three capi, the capes where the road rises away from the beaches to tackle headlands. Positioning counts here as riders jostle for position and use up energy. The third one, the Capo Berta is the hardest, over a kilometre at 7-8%. There’s only 10km to the Cipressa.

The Cipressa is the hardest climb of the day, compounded by the 261km that has preceded it. Listed as 4.1% gradient for 5.6km it’s really over 5% for nearly 4km and with some 6-7% parts on a twisting road that helps to line out the peloton such that a rider in 40th place is a long way back measured by time. It flattens out for a balcony section before the village of Cipressa and the pinch point at the top. The descent is tricky in places, especially for riders on the limit. Then comes nine kilometres back on the Via Aurelia.

The Poggio is less steep and the freshly-surfaced early ramps are connected by corners where riders often dab the brakes because they’re going up so fast. Two thirds of the way up and the road straightens out and the steepest part comes, this has often been the moneytime moment where the outcome is decided in a few pedal strokes

It’s downhill into Sanremo. By itself it’s not the most difficult descent but now it’s tricky descent because of the slender margins, nobody can afford to let a rival take a bike length. It’s not the flowing downhill Super-G schuss, many of the bends require riders to power out of the exit so it suits beefy riders as much as daredevils.

Once clear the last ramp there are 2.2km to the finish.

The Contenders

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is the first pick. He won it in 2023 and 2025 and last year showed range, experience and cunning to beat Tadej Pogačar: tracking him on the Cipressa, matching him on the Poggio and then tucking him away in the sprint. This year looks similar but how much can we extrapolate from Tirreno-Adriatico where he took two stages, the first looked effortless, the second more than effortful? If Pogačar goes into the Cipressa in a better position than last year then overcoming his anaerobic torture here is a big ask.

His team will take responsibility early on and this brings us to Jasper Philipsen who won in between Van der Poel’s two wins. He’s not looked so sparkling this season but apparently it’s all part of a plan where he’s sacrificed a little top speed to become more versatile. His win in this week’s Nokere Koerse hints at this, winning the uphill sprint. Parlaying this into the Cipressa-Poggio combo is more than a leap, it’s a triple jump but it makes him a contender. He also boosts Van der Poel’s chances as he can mark rivals who don’t have a sprinter….

Solo or bust for Tadej Pogačar (UAE)? He’s tried a Cipressa attack two years in a row. The first fizzled out, the second got him an option on the win, only to be out-sprinted by Van der Poel. Each time he’s had trouble with positioning going in the climb so if his team can deliver him among the first five riders this time he’ll have an advantage. Third time lucky? Now we’ll see if he drop the field and go solo to the finish. Easy, eh? Everyone bracing for this move and were he to shed everyone up the Cipressa and eek out a few more seconds on the descent there’s still 18km to go. Yet if he tries to encourage others to go with him in the move then his chances of being beaten rise; unless he can lure them and then distance them on the Poggio. To add to the “easier said than done” palimpsest the weather forecast now has a mild headwind in the finish which benefits a group more than a solo rider but only if the chasers are able to get organised and have the numbers to work. Pogačar could sit tight and go all in on the Poggio instead but this forsakes his comparative advantage.

Isaac Del Toro can join him on the attack. The Mexican is in form having won Tirreno-Adriatico and has taken plenty of one day races on the Italian calendar already. Normally when Pogačar starts it’s all in for him on the team and like we saw in the Strade Bianche Del Toro can be deployed to mark rivals.

Italians tune for Sanremo every spring… the music festival where an Italian is guaranteed to win. Now we’ll see if Filippo Ganna (Ineos) can deliver a crowd-pleaser. He has been runner-up twice, but how to win? The Cipressa represents his climbing limit and while there’s huge power for a sprint, there are faster riders. A late attack in the streets of Sanremo might be his best route but assumes he is there and has the energy left to pull this off. His predecessor Fabian Cancellara made a habit of these finisseur moves, Ganna’s only had one World Tour level road race win, the Giro stage in 2020 but pull it off and like this year’s song, it’ll be Per sempre si or “Forever yes”. Axel Laurance and Ben Turner are sprint cards to play.

Visma-LAB are without Matthew Brennan, an ace sprint card. A win for Wout van Aert would be a fairy tale given the form of late but it’s not the story he’s trying to write, his goals are in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix but nobody is going to turn it down here. Christophe Laporte ought to be an archetypal rider for this race but has yet to finish in the top-10. Matteo Jorgenson is a wildcard to play and can probably count on being delivered into the Cipressa but in his own words he can’t really sprint.

Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) won Milano-Torino in the week, he jumped clear on the Superga for the win and was clearly the best but a show of force when more is needed today. He’s not been in the top-10 before but fits the bill and can win the sprint from a small group. Plus he almost won two years ago with a late move.

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) is no fan of this race as he doesn’t like the long, processional wait. He starts on his comeback from a broken wrist, form unknown but team mate Giulio Ciccone could be a surprise.

Matej Mohorič (Bahrain) is not on many people’s radar and he probably likes that.

Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) crashed hard in Tirenno-Adriatico but is a contender thanks to his ability to deliver a long sprint at the end of a hilly day.

Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) tried to follow Pogačar last year but could not hold on for the final metres of the Cipressa, any gain on this might give him more of an option but as good as he is and the form looks sharp, the rivals look superior.

A bunch sprint? As the chart shows there’s never a field sprint and even large groups over a decade ago where around thirty riders. So this makes it tough for sprinters like Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) even if he’s enjoying an excellent season. So while Luke Lamperti (EF), Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Laurence Pithie (RedBull) or especially Andrea Vendrame (Jayco) are four more to pick among forty more contenders their chances are slim given the competition already cited and as finely balanced as the race may be it is not generating many surprise winners and upsets of late.

	Mathieu van der Poel
	Pogačar
	Ganna, Philipsen
	Del Toro, Pidcock
	Van Aert, Laporte, Magnier

Weather (updated Saturday): 5°C at the start in Pavia but sunny with a light tailwind. Later a milder 17°C along the coast where the gentle tailwind from the NE will switch to a SW headwind within the final 50km but only just, 7-10km/h.

A headwind can put a lid on things but the forecast seems uncertain, and if there is a headwind it’ll be very slight.

TV: the start is at 10.10am and the finish is at 4.55pm CET. It’s live on RAI for locals and VPN users, channel-hoping from RAI Sport to RAI2 at 2.00pm. Otherwise it’s on Eurosport, Flobikes and SBS for English-speaking coverage, the latter being an option for VPN users too.

Should you watch from the start? Look to see which teams send riders in the early breakaway. As a rule the earlier you tune in the more frenetic the finale feels and you can have it playing in the background all day.

Albenga comes with with 65km to go and is where the fight for position turns into a combat sport, it’s around 3.20pm.

Women’s Sanremo: there’s more to watch with the finish at 2.30pm CET. The obvious pick is Lorena Wiebes who won last year and hasn’t been beaten in a sprint since the year before that to the point where confident of this monopoly she’s been working on versatility so should hope to resist attacks but all the more reason for teams not hypnotised by her to try on the Cipressa. For a more thorough preview, visit ProCyclingUK.com.

The post Milan-Sanremo Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

It’s too early to draw conclusions for the three year promotion and relegation cycle but here’s a look at the latest standings in chart form.

UAE are running away with almost 2,500 points on Red Bull and Tadej Pogačar has only raced once. Isaac Del Toro, Jan Christen, Jay Vine and Antonio Morgado have scored more so far.

XDS-Astana continue to grab points galore and are ahead of Visma-LAB and Decathlon-CMA CGM. The French team’s top scorer is Tobias Lund on 865 points, just with five points more than Paul Seixas. They are among the big budget teams now but remember that if they spend 80% of their budget on rider wages, a quarter of this goes on French payroll taxes. So whatever the headline, the actual spending power is about a fifth less. Today’s L’Equipe mentions they’re trying to extent title sponsorship from their existing backers until 2035 and quotes team manager Dominique Serieys saying that were Paul Seixas ever to leave the team it won’t be because of money.

Jayco have had a good start thanks in part to Mauro Schmid bringing in over 1,000 points or a third of their haul. Newly promoted Uno-X are settling in well so far.

Soudal-Quickstep sit lower than would be expected. Filippo Zana has 442 points for them thanks to the Giro di Sardegna win and 8th overall Down Under. Paul Magnier their next best scorer on 222.

Embed from Getty Images

Groupama-FDJ see almost half their points coming from Romain Grégoire’s strong start to the season. Off all the teams they have the biggest ratio of top rider divided by team score.

The red bars in the chart mark ProTeams, the second tier. Here Tudor, Cofidis, Pinarello-Q36.5 all sit above the line to mark 18th place and so are virtual promotion candidates. Yes there’s a long way to go but they’re doing what they need to so far.

Lidl-Trek are hardly relegation candidates but linger in 17th place. Injury and illness explains plenty with Mads Pedersen out, Thibau Nys needing surgery and Juan Ayuso leaving Paris-Nice which Mattias Skjelmose could not start. Jonathan Milan has six wins this season but they’re stage wins and he hasn’t hit the jackpot of an overall win.

The dark horizontal line marks 18th place. Lotto-Intermarché could get a boost next week from their results in the Tour de Taiwan with two stage wins so far. Alpecin-PremierTech have less to worry about given Matthew Van der Poel should score big but they’re obviously reliant on him and even Jasper Philipsen is only on 41 points.

Picnic-PostNL stand out for their struggles. A year ago they were relegation candidates but had at least scored around a thousand points to keep them in contention. Now they’re already about a thousand points adrift of relegation and are the only WorldTeam without a win so far this season.

Elsewhere…
Bardiani-CSF-7 Saber, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Flanders-Baloise, SolutionTech-Nippo-Rali and Team Novo Nordisk don’t feature on the chart as they’re outside the top-30. Eligibility for a grand tour wildcard depends on being inside.

Cycling’s second tier is shrinking and set to get smaller. There’s still no news on a replacement sponsor for Total Energies and the deal needs to be done in the coming weeks otherwise their best riders will start to sign elsewhere which in turn makes the team less attractive for a potential sponsor, creating a vicious cycle. We know Flanders-Baloise is stopping. Now Kern Pharma announced it will end its seven year sponsorship and the team barely mentioned the search for a replacement, only saying “now is an ideal team”.

Conclusion
If a picture says a 1,000 words then having seen the UCI rankings tables which come out every Tuesday it was about time to see what it looks like as a bar chart and share it. UAE have a huge gap already and Picnic-PostNL are already in trouble.

The post UCI Team Rankings first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Stage 4 to Uchon saw the peloton split in crosswinds at the start. A crash in the front group inside the final 50km saw half the Red Bull team ride on unhindered with Jonas Vingegaard along for the ride. This was the moment the race was won.

The two opening stages went to the sprinters with surprise wins for Luke Lamperti and Max Kanter with both triumphs were built on a strong lead-out and an early drop-off.

Stage 3 was the team time trial. Paris-Nice has had the rule twist of taking the time on the first rider across the line since 2023 and apparently lwith this year’s Barcelona Tour de France start in mind all along. The win went to Ineos who were two seconds faster than Lidl-Trek but the yellow jersey was for Juan Ayuso because he’d four second time bonus on the previous stage. Visma-LAB were close but UAE were not.

It was all looking like a classic Paris-Nice, Ayuso in the lead with seconds in it. And now came the bad weather stage as a cold front swept across France for Stage 4.

Look at the the picture above. Almost everyone is out of the saddle as Stage 4 starts. A three-quarters tailwind would whip the bunch along and cause splits from the start.

The decisive moment later happened on an innocuous portion of road. The descent of the Col du Rebout was over by the time the race reached the D3 out of Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray. A reader even visited the location and remarked it was an ordinary bit of tarmac.

Whatever happened wasn’t seen. The TV motorbike camera was well ahead and filming backwards, there was no overhead shot as the helicopter was grounded due to bad weather. But Juan Ayuso crashed, taking down Brandon McNulty and others too.

It left Vingegaard with a free ride to the finish as Nico Denz and Tim and Mick van Dijcke rode on to tow their team leader Dani Martinez to a high overall position. Any unwritten rule about waiting for the yellow jersey was long gone but wouldn’t have mattered as Juan Ayuso was out of the race. His injury looked horrible in the moment but fortunately it was only hip trauma and he’ll be back for his next race as planned.

Cycling often has Snakes and Ladders moments but this was different. This was more a scene of a cartoon or a Buster Keaton movie where the protagonist jumps aboard a moving train to evade chasers, and then as it crosses a large viaduct with the pursuers closing in on a handcar only for the bridge to fall away to thwart them for good. You can make your own luck but it’s rarely this decisive in sport.

Another unseen moment was Georg Steinhauser slipping away from the chasers but this gave him over 40 seconds on the rest and would lift him up to third place overall and the podium in Nice.

Vingegaard got a free ride to the line and his greatest worry seemed to be clothing. He’d been dressed in layers of kit to see him through the early part of the stage only the relentless pace left him with no chance to stop and remove some of it. But the layering worked as Dani Martinez seemed frozen to the bone and unable to respond on the climb to the Signal d’Uchon. After he’d changed into the yellow jersey Vingegaard had minutes on most of the rivals who’d stayed in the race.

Vingegaard doubled up the next day. This stage win was much less complicated. He set his team to work to chase down the break and the last rider left, Victor Campenaerts, did a hail Mary turn on the hardest climb of the day and Vingegaard attacked and was clear for the win. This is probably going to be his route to the Giro d’Italia win as rather than waiting until late to move, he can shake off rivals mid-way on a summit finish and pace himself to the finish faster than the rest.

With the sun back out Harold Tejada took the win in Apt. If Dorian Godon was frustrated to win the sprint for second, he’d get lucky the next day. Snow fell on the planned route to Auron and so the decision was taken to finish in Isola village down in the valley below. On the day the route was shortened further to just 47km and Godon won the sprint.

The final stage saw Dani Martinez crash on the descent of the Col de Porte and begin a long chase with team mates. Normally losing a minute here would be ruinous on the final stage of Paris-Nice but he had help from team mates and a cushion to manage and by the time gaps were so wide that he did not have to panic.

Visma-LAB tried to set up Vingegaard for the stage win again but this time Lenny Martinez stuck to his back wheel and later said it was hard but he had something in reserve, he suffered more on the flat to hold the Dane’s wheel. Martinez won the stage and Vingegaard the race.

The Verdict
For Vingegaard a successful week, for everyone else an atypical one. The pleasure of Paris-Nice often from the tiny margins and competition to the end. Not this time, this was a comprehensive triumph for Vingegaard. A margin of 4m23s is the fourth largest ever, and the three editions with wider gaps were all in the 1930s. Vingegaard won the points and mountains competitions as well, a feat only achieved by Eddy Merckx in 1970 and Sean Kelly in 1983, 1984 and 1986. Fate played an oversized role here: Stage 4’s bad weather and one crash defined the race.

The imponderable is whether Juan Ayuso would have challenged Vingegaard the win. Probably as the form was there, the team strong and the intent to go for the win too but first stay upright. We won’t know of course and if the question can’t be answered it is still a lament as seeing the two in duel decided by seconds should have been the race played out. For all the ease of Vingegaard’s win he can’t count on having it as easy again this season. His next test is Catalunya where he’ll face a denser field.

As well as the high profile exits, plenty of others left the race along the way. Bahrain finished with two riders. Cofidis with one in Ion Izagirre who finished 7th overall. But perhaps the struggle was worse for Picnic-PostNL which finished the week with only €200 of prize money but along the way got a CHF 500 fine from the commissaires so a negative outcome, at least in cash terms.

The week showed the role of team work: it made the difference for lead-outs in the first two stages; obviously for the team time trial which could have been won by Decathlon if they had an extra rider to accompany Daan Hoole; Red Bull’s numbers and the strength of the Van Dijke brothers got Dani Martinez on the podium and set up the decisive win to Vingegaard; it placed Harold Tejada back in the bunch after a puncture so he could attack and win; it set up Dorian Godon’s sprint; all this and more. Including the decision by Ineos not to give Kévin Vauquelin’s more support when dropped early on Stage 4 probably costing him the podium.

Milan-Sanremo is rushing up. We’re all meteorologists this week to see there’s a tailwind in the finish because this plays a big role in whether an attack on the Cipressa works. Right now six different models predict a tailwind. If Mother Nature obliges we’ll see if UAE can nail the team work soon.

The post The Moment Paris-Nice Was Won first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The final stage and for once there’s not all to play for as Jonas Vingegaard leads by over three minutes. But the stage win and the other podium places are available and all on a new route with a novel finish.

Stage 7 Review: a win for Dorian Godon in an abbreviated stage. Snowfall saw the finish moved to Isola village and then heavy rain saw the start moved too and the stage was reduced to 47km. It happened despite several teams voting no to race.

Visma-LAB helped keep a lid on things all stage and in the finale Ineos supplied a good lead out and Godon got his second stage win with Ineos after the team time trial. He also collected the points jersey.

Godon said on TV that the Ineos team at Paris-Nice is their Tour de France team. In July there’s an extra rider and the addition is likely to be Thymen Arensman; while one rider this week will probably be swapped out to make room for Filippo Ganna.

The Route: 2,780m of vertical gain in 145km. The first 80km are the same in previous years with the ride up the Var valley, the Col de la Porte and then the descent to L’Escarène. But instead of heading east for the climb to Peille this time it’s west for some “new” roads.

The Col de Châteauneuf comes next, 6.6% says the profile but it’s a twisty backroad that rewards attacks as it’s easy to get out of sight. Right at the start there’s a long 14% section to reward an attack.

The hardest climb comes last, Linguador in the road book or “Death Road” to some locals, fortunately on account of its asphyxiating slopes rather than anything worse. It’s a narrow road with an irregular slope.

There’s also the surprise climb of the intermediate sprint with 7km to go, the route turns off the valley floor to take a twisty side road that climbs for over a kilometre at 4-5%.

The Finish: flat but with a sweeping bend that’s almost a U-turn with 350m to go, it’s wide and is based off a roundabout but means the finish isn’t in sight until late.

The Contenders: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) can win but has to attack on a climb and go solo. Easier said than done but his show showed it can work earlier in the week. It’s just harder to pull off on this stage.

Kévin Vauquelin (Ineos) has two goals today, the stage and finding 19 seconds on Georg Steinhauser in order to get on the podium. Both goals can be combined.

Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) might prefer an uphill finish but he’s actually quick in a small group. The same for Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quickstep)

UAE have Marc Soler and Igor Arrieta, the former is 8th overall and so has less space. Movistar’s Jefferson Cepeda is an outside pick. Likewise Tudor’s Mathys Rondel.

Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana) would be a pick but had a hard crash yesterday which left him with a bruised leg so it’s not clear if he’ll start today.

	–
	Vauquelin, Vingegaard
	L Martinez, Paret-Peintre, Arrieta

Weather: sunshine but cool, 13°C and windy at times.

TV: 60 minutes of live from 3.30pm CET onwards and the finish is due around 4.30pm CET.

Postcard from Nice
Paris-Nice finishes in Nice today. There have been finishes on the Quai des Etats-Unis and the Promenade des Anglais and today has a new finish outside the Allianz Riviera stadium which sits on the edge of the city. Today’s finish is because of local elections in France today and to ease access to voting stations.

However 28 of the 84 editions of the race, one third, haven’t actually finished in Nice. From 1969 to 1995 the race always finished on the Col d’Eze which technically isn’t Nice. The race has also finished there in 2012 and 2013. The Coronavirus obliged the race to halt a day early at the La Colmiane ski resort in 2020, while in 2021 the eighth and final stage finished in Levens in the hills behind Nice by design because of the pandemic too.

In 1959 the race finished… in Rome. It was an 11 day race and after reaching Nice at the end of the seventh stage the best riders were invited to race on to Rome. The event had three general classifications, one to Nice, one from Nice to Rome and then an overall of these for Paris to Rome. This extended edition was won by Jean Graczyk. However the riders and the UCI found it too long and the experience was not repeated.

The post Paris-Nice Stage 8 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

An Alpine summit finish and an early finish so if you plan to catch this on TV then note it’s two hours earlier than usual.

Apt à la compétition: the breakaway of four with Josh Tarling, Igor Arrieta, Stef Cras and Arthur Kluckers wasn’t allowed much room and with 30km to go they had under a minute going up the Col de l’Aire dei Masco. Only on the way down the escapees took back 30 seconds, dropping Cras and restarting the race.

It set up a tense finale with Lidl-Trek taking up the chase but they ran out of riders and at about this time Harald Tejada punctured. A textbook bike change and teamwork got him back to the shrunken peloton in time to save his now 10th place overall having started the day 11th only for Oscar Onley to leave the race.

Ahead in the break Kluckers was dropped on the last climb to leave Tarling and Arrieta but they were caught as Visma-LAB’s  Victor Campenaerts rode hard seeming to ride just to keep Jonas Vingegaard out of trouble but his pace had team mate Axel Zingle seemingly shouting “stop” into his race radio as he went out the back of the group and an outsider for the sprint finish.

Lenny Martinez tried an attack of the top but needed steeper terrain. Just when Martinez was caught, Harold Tejada went clear and profited from the rest catching their breath. This hesitation was enough to give him a gap and this was sufficient to stay clear.

Tejada’s been a promising rider who has had plenty of top-10s but never seemed strong enough to ride away for the win on a summit finish. If this was more opportunistic, all the better as he gets his first World Tour win.

The Route: a change in plan with the race not going to the Auron ski resort. Instead a finish in the village of Isola on the valley floor. There’s an uphill start to help a breakaway get clear but then the bigger valley road for the second half of the stage to to the finish.

• Update 11.30am: the race will have a neutralised procession from the start to ride to Plan-du-Var, the intermediate sprint location. From here the race will start.

The Finish: no ski station summit finish. It’s the valley road that drags up alongside the white water Tinée river. It kicks up in a few places but nothing severe. The final two kilometres to the village of Isola are the flattest and allow a small sprint train to get into place.

The Contenders: without the summit finish it’s all change. Visma-LAB would have worked to contain the break and launch Jonas Vingegaard on the final climb to the stage win, now the Dane’s path to victory looks almost impossible. But other teams will fancy setting up a reduced bunch sprint.

Second yesterday Dorian Godon (Ineos) is an obvious pick and he is often good on foul weather days too and has the backing of a strong team where Josh Tarling can chase and Kévin Vauquelin do an improvised lead out but he’d like a real uphill sprint with a 2-3% slope. Luke Lamperti (EF) is moving well. Orluis Aular (Movistar) is good in sprints. Axel Zingle (Visma-LAB) seems a bit short of form but the ex-skier often seems to thrive in grim conditions, likewise Laurence Pithie (RedBull) so harder picks.

	Godon
	Lamperti, Girmay
	Pithie, Zingle, Kanter, Askey

Weather: cold and wet at the start with 12°C but going inland the temperature will drop and it’ll be about 4°C at the finish.

TV: an early finish due at 3.00pm CET.

Postcard from Auron
The plan was to race to Auron today. Michael Storer won in this ski station last year. Paris-Nice can’t avoid the snow in March in case of bad weather but it never meant to be an Alpine race

Originally it was billed as “The Six Days of the Road”, it was a marketing stunt to appeal to the crowds that flocked to track races in the 1930s and riders alike who’d spent winter on the boards indoors. It linked Paris and Nice because organiser Albert Lejeune had a newspaper in each city.

The race took a while to lean into this identity but in 1951 it was relaunched by journalist Jean Leulliot and Jean Médecin, the mayor of Nice. Leulliot could promote his weekly Route et Piste (“Road and Track”) newspaper while the city of Nice was out to appeal to cyclists as a place to ride and train and to boost hotel occupancy during low season. Much like Calpe and other places in Spain today.

It was never a flat race but it did avoid the Alps for a long time. It visited Mont Ventoux – not Alpine geologically – in 1975 with a finish halfway at Chalet Reynard and has been back a few times since. In 1992 it had a summit finish in the Col du Grand Duc on the edge of the Alps. In 1994 it went to the Vaujany ski station in the Alps. In 2009 it had a summit finish on Ventoux’s “sister” mountain of the Montagne de Lure and has been back. There have been other climbs and summit finishes but often more towards mid-mountains.

Snow has been a regular presence, especially when tackling climbs in central France where winter puts on a late show. Only 19 riders reached Nice in 1939 because most of the field had quit on Stage 2. Often stages have been modified and shortened because of icy weather.

2017 marked the change with the Col de la Couillole. It’s given the race a different feel, think the Tour de France but minus the heat and crowds. Every edition since has seen the Saturday stage going into the Alps behind Nice for a ski station visit. This is risky for the race with snowfall in March but no problem for the host locations if we all learn they’re covered in snow. Auron might not get the race its due but it’s the region that pays and to cut a longer story short the mayor of Nice manages the resort too so the added publicity of “too much snow” is no bad thing for everyone. Except Jonas Vingegaard who could have won a third stage today.

The post Paris-Nice Stage 7 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A good day for a breakaway and the most accessible stage of the week.

Stage 5 Review: a fast stage with a solid breakaway but Visma-LAB chased hard and last helper Victor Campenaerts led out Jonas Vingegaard on the hardest climb of the day so the Dane could attack with 21km to go. Nobody could follow him, Lenny Martinez was close but as soon as the climbing was done Martinez and others floundered and the Dane was away for a second stage win and after yesterday’s wardrobe malfunction he looked good in the yellow jersey and now leads the mountains competition and sits in second place on the points competition behind Luke Lamperti. It’s pleasing to see Vingegaard being this audacious but let’s hope the Giro has more suspense.

The “chase” behind was amusing if only because there was little pursuit and instead the riders were taking turns to attack. Kévin Vauquelin was keen to make up for lost time but it showed, he was making a lot of moves and almost paid for this as he struggled to follow others.

The Route: 179km and 2,100m of vertical gain. It’s similar to 2020 when the race came and toured the Luberon mountains before a finish in Apt but a different route altogether. None of the climbs are tricky by themselves.

The Finish: the climb to Saignon with two difficult kilometres. It’s almost the finish line as 20 seconds for a lone rider over the top could be sufficient to win.

The Contenders: the archetypal winner today is a fast-finisher who can handle some climbs and the final climb . Whether they infiltrate the break or use their teams to control the race depends on their squads.

Luke Lamperti (EF) fits the bill here but will be challenged by the climbs. Biniam Girmay (NSN) likewise and while he’s not had a result so far he might find today’s course less chaotic. Dorian Godon (Ineos) and Orluis Aular (Movistar) could be better on the climbs, likewise Max Kanter (XDS-Astana). Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) is a contender but a rare winner.

The Van Dijcke brothers impressed on the stage to Uchon and Tim was the better but there’s not much in it. Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X) finds roads to suit. Victor Campenaerts (Visma-LAB) looks in great form. UAE don’t have many options left but it could be Ivo Oliveira‘s time.

	–
	Leknessund, Godon, Aular, Kanter
	Campenaerts, Vacek, Oliveira, Lamperti

Weather: sunshine and 16°C, with a gentle breeze of 10km/h from the SW.

TV: two hours of live coverage with the finish at 5.00pm CET.

Postcard from Apt
Paris-Nice returns to Apt for the third time, completing the superstitious French phrase of jamais deux sans trois or “never two without three”. That’s fitting for today, Friday 13th. Often associated with bad luck, in France it can go both ways. Lottery operator FDJ gets a boost in sales today. While the probability of a Friday 13th is 1.72 times per year, 2026 has three: last month, today and one in November too.

Superstition has its place in pro cycling. As irrational as it might be, it makes sense in a domain where random events occur. You might crash because you went into a corner too fast; but often it’s because someone swerves, someone else brakes, and there’s a pile-up 40 places down the line. There’s been a lot of work to minimise random events and master the details – once upon a time team manager Antonin Magne would use a pendulum to dowse rider ability, today we have power meters – but it remains a fundamentally risky sport. Many a rider has their pre-race rituals.

Embed from Getty Images

The number 13 is often pinned on upside down in a race. In the 2023 Tour de France it didn’t exist with UAE having numbers 11-12 and 14-19. But only the 13 gets this, other unlucky numbers like 17 in Italy or 4 in Japan don’t seem to get the same treatment.

Coincidental or not the last time Paris-Nice came to Apt it was in 2020 and on Friday 13 too. Tiesj Benoot won that day but if there was luck involved it did not show. His team Søren Kragh Andersen had been up road with Romain Bardet when Benoot blasted across in the finale and then rode away for the win. It was the kind of tactical coup Sunweb would deploy in the Tour de France later that year to take three stage wins. The team is branded Picnic-PostNL and need some luck as they’re the only team without a win this season, they’re last among their peers on the UCI rankings by some way and they were the slowest in the team time trial earlier this week. Maybe today?

The post Paris-Nice Stage 6 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Back at it, the peloton tackles the longest stage of the race with some tricky climbs in the finish. The sun should be back.

Le Printemps de Bourges: the crosswind stage came two days later than planned. A three-quarters tailwind out of Bourges encouraged the peloton to race hard from the start and the script for the racing was gone with the wind. Out went the idea of a close race where the team time trial would shape the GC, where riders would contest the stage in an uphill sprint.

Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley and were out of the GC race, Vauquelin missing the split right at the start while a Onley crashed and lost contact with the front group.

Alas out went Juan Ayuso in a different several riders fell on a bend and if Ayuso was soon back on the bike he could hardly pedal and when he came to a stop he seemed unable to stand up and collapsed to the ground. Brandon McNulty was also out.

This crash split the field and suddenly there were five Red Bull riders on the front with Mathias Vacek and Jonas Vingegaard on their wheels. Vacek would crack and it was down to the Van Dijke brothers to tow Dani Martinez with Vingegaard along for the ride.

Vingegaard did not expect this kind of stage and one clue was his clothing, he was dressed in many layers and could not stop to take them off and so had to race the heated finale with bib longs over giving him the appearance of a runner who had decided to practice for a triathlon. As unfashionable as it seemed, he was looking good as Red Bull towed him away and the time gap on the rest was widening. Nobody behind had any team mates left and the race began to look like some endurance event with everyone out for themselves. Vauquelin was trying to make up for lost time but in the fog of sport Georg Steinhauser had got ahead and so the German is a surprise in the top-10 on GC.

Vingegaard rode away for the win and almost uncontested, Martinez presumably tetanised by the cold. For all Vingegaard’s wardrobe choices he’s the one in the yellow jersey now.

Taken away by paramedics Juan Ayuso looked in a very bad way but the news overnight is more encouraging, no fractures. Things might be more difficult on the Ineos team bus with Vauquelin accusing a Soudal-QS rider of flicking into the ditch at the start. The unsaid part is that he ended up chasing a lone for a long time while the team were trying to help Onley only for Vauquelin to ride past and be their first finisher but in the moment this outcome was hard to predict earlier and to go back and “rescue” Vauquelin would have been perilous.

The Route: 205km and 3,000m of vertical gain. It’s south down the Saone valley and into Paul Seixas country as he’s from the north of Lyon where the first climb of the day is a small bump in the road; the next one out of Trèves is a long drag.

Things get tricky with 40km to go. The climb to Sécheras has a tricky start with several corners in the village beside the Rhone river where positioning counts. It’s 4km at a solid 7% and all on a small back road. There’s a bigger road but only just to go back to the valley floor.

The climb out of St. Jean-de-Muzols is 2km at 12% and if the graphic above signals a 16% section, there are good parts at 15% on the way too, and all on a road that quickly gets narrow. It should be the decisive point of the stage.

The next climb is a bigger road with steady gradient and then a right turn for a smaller road to the finish that drags up before levelling out just by the finish line.

The Contenders: a lot depends on who has recovered yesterday. The breakaway has a good chance because if Vingegaard leads the race, he’s in a relatively secure place for now and there are only three others within five minutes on the GC although Visma are bound to filter the breakaway to ensure nobody is allowed back into contention.

Ivan Romeo (Movistar) has seen is GC bid collapse so now switches to stage hunting and he climbs surprisingly well. Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ) is a punchy rider for the finish. Lennard Kämna (Lidl-Trek) has to race for himself now. Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon-CMA CGM) is no GC threat.

Kévin Vauquelin (Ineos) might feel he has a point to prove today, maybe Oscar Onley too. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) will want a result this week and today’s stage suits.

Sandy Dujardin (TotalEnergies) is the local rider.

	–
	L Martinez, Romeo, Soler
	Costiou, Kämna, Vauquelin, Onley, Arrieta

Weather: the Mistral wind can howl down the Rhone valley but usually it’s further south and the forecast says it won’t blow much anyway, just a 10km/h tailwind. Otherwise 11°C but sunny.

TV: the finish is at 5.00pm. Tune in from 4.00pm to get the final steep climbs.

Postcard from Tournon-sur-Rhône

Paris-Nice goes down the Rhone valley today and this overlaps with plenty of past editions, including the 1959 version. Its long-time organiser Jean Leulliot had a history of innovation (the Tour de France féminin, the prologue, the kilometre rule, the air transfer were some Leulliot’s ideas and he had plenty more). But one change he was against was radio course, “race radio”. The short wave system allowed those in the race convoy to communicate. It had been introduced in the 1956 Tour de France which Leulliot covered as a journalist and here is part of his write-up:

“Just push a button and everyone: team managers, journalists, photographers can get the innermost details of the race. For example one day you can hear “Ride X alerts his manager that has found some ham in his musette!” It was evocative but really useless. The reach of Radio Tour must be limited”
– Jean Leulliot (translated) in Sport Mondial, 1956

Leulliot didn’t just want the radio’s signal power kept low, he was against it for several reasons. First because it didn’t work on some days and so nobody knew what was going on because with radio they’d got rid of the blackboards used to communicate time gaps. But when it did work Leuillot wrote that it took the thinking out of a race, that directeur sportifs would be reduced to robots.

Leuillot’s next objection was that any local en route could pick up the signal and feel informed; but this could wrong as as race radio was run by the organisers and not news mediated by journalists.

All of Leuillot’s complaints were about race radio in the convoys but you can see obvious parallels to team radios used today which riders carry with them: the claims of robot riders guided by operators from the team cars; or the audio clips of this played in the Tour de France which are supplied by the organisers rather than journalists.

However if Leuillot was against this as a journalist, he was an organiser as well and radio course became a component of the sport. In 1959 he relented and Paris-Nice went on the airwaves too.

The post Paris-Nice Stage 5 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.