Masterful: Wiggins took stage victory and GC and points wins
Nicolas Roche (Ag2r) has rounded off his Paris-Nice today, Sunday, by doing enough in the mountain time trial to hold his 20th position on GC.
Today’s stage and the overall win went to Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky), who became the first Briton to win ‘the race to sun’ since Tom Simpson in 1963.
Roche was 42nd today, some 2:01 slower that Wiggins’ winning time of 19:12 up the first category Col d’Eze.
While Roche comes out of this year’s event in much better shape than twelve moths ago – when he packed on the penultimate stage – he expressed dissatisfaction with his form a number of times during the week.
He had a mediocre prologue time trial at the start of the week and then lost contact with the large race-defining breakaway on Monday just as that group was pulling clear in the cross winds. He also performed below par on the only summit finish of the race, losing 1:17 on Thursday when the stage finished at Mende.
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However, he took seventh in the bunch sprint after a tough day last Wednesday and had the legs to get up the road alone in finale yesterday, though he was eventually swallowed up. He will be hoping he can now build on those glimpses of early season form.
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Stage: Nice – Col d’Eze 9.6km TT
1 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:19:12
2 Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM 0:00:02
3 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) Ag2R La Mondiale 0:00:33
4 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha Team 0:00:47
5 Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur-Sojasun 0:00:51
6 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:52
7 Andreas Klöden (Ger) RadioShack-Nissan 0:00:58
8 David Moncoutie (Fra) Cofidis Le Credit En Ligne 0:00:59
9 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - ISD
10 Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Sky Procycling 0:01:06
42 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Ag2R La Mondiale 0:02:01
Final General Classification
1 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 28:12:16
2 Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM 0:00:08
3 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:10
4 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha Team 0:01:24
5 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:54
6 Arnold Jeannesson (Fra) FDJ-Bigmat 0:02:13
7 Maxime Monfort (Bel) RadioShack-Nissan 0:02:21
8 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:02:42
9 Robert Kiserlovski (Cro) Astana Pro Team 0:03:30
10 Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Katusha Team 0:03:59
20 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Ag2R La Mondiale 0:06:28
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