Sam Bennett starts Paris-Nice in search of his third win of the year, but also with a yellow jersey on the line at the end of today’s opening stage. He will have Michael Mørkøv and Florian Sénéchal as his main lead-out men.
The undulating terrain today, and possibility of crosswinds, means a bunch sprint is far from a foregone conclusion, though the stage may well go to the fast men in the field.
And if Bennett, who already has three Paris-Nice stage wins in his palmares, could come good and take victory, after two wins already at UAE Tour this year, he’d go into the yellow jersey.
The 165.8km stage today, staring and finishing in Saint-Cyr-L’École, is two laps of a large circuit with two cat 3 climbs in the second half of the lap. The first is 1.6km at 4.6 per cent and the second just 700 metres at 7.1 per cent.
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On the second lap of the race the last of those two
categorised climbs is crested a long way before the finish; approximately 26km.
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They are both climbs within Bennett’s range, and even if he were to get into trouble, he would have some time to regroup before the finish.
If the race comes down to a sprint the Irish rider is the standout finisher in the field, alongside Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), though there are many challengers.
Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe), Cees Bol (Team DSM), Alexander Kristoff (UAE-Team Emirates), Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka Assos), Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) and Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa Samsic) will all fancy their chances.
Similarly, Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious), Bryan
Coquard (B&B Hotels p/b KTM), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) may all be
in the hunt.
And depending on how hard the stage is raced, especially
the final hour, riders like Anthony Turgis (Total Direct Energie), Michael Matthews
(Team BikeExchange) and Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) are also capable of
winning.
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