Ryan Mullen and Sam Bennett are continuing at Paris-Nice despite another series of abandons today, with the two Irish riders working for Bora-hansgrohe's general classification contender Aleksandr Vlasov as their team is down to just four riders.
“We’re happy with the stage today. The profile was a bit too easy for major changes in the GC. Once again the boys worked very well together and did a great job supporting Aleks. Now we’re looking forward to the two final mountain stages here," said Bora-hansgrohe directeur Torsten Schmidt.
A further 10 members of the field either did not start or abandoned today's stage 6, which took the riders 213.6km from Courthézon to Aubagne. The stage included five medium sized categorised climbs.
Among those to withdraw were Bennett's sprint rivals Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), who withdrew due to fatigue, and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Fenix), who has fallen in. As the flu has swept through the field, just 109 riders remain in the race from the 154 that started the race last Sunday.
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Mathieu Burgaudeau of TotalEnergies took an unlikely stage victory. The 23-year-old French rider, who had never won a race before today, attacked the reduced peloton solo at the intermediate sprint point just inside the final 9km.,
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He never built a gap bigger than 18 seconds and for most of his time off the front his advantage was much smaller than that. Despite Christope Laporte (Jumbo Visma) putting in some big turns in the finale in a bid to catch Burgaudeau and set Wout van Aert for the bunch sprint, the lone attacker just about held off the remains of the peloton.
He crossed the line celebrating his win just as the front of the bunch, led in by Mads Pedersen (Trek Segafredo) from Van Aert, caught him on the line. Race leader Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) was among the 60-rider peloton, meaning he retained the yellow jersey.
Sam Bennett and Ryan Mullen spent the early part of the stage working for Vlasov before losing contact with the bunch and finishing in the last group on the road, at 15:23.
Tomorrow's 155.2km stage takes the riders from Nice to Col de Turini, which is a 15.2km cat 1 summit finish. The race concludes on Sunday with stage 8, some 115km starting and finishing in Nice. There are three cat 2 climbs and then two cat 1 mountains, including the final Col d'Eze ascent before the 15km descent into the finish.
