The bunch snakes up one of today’s many climbs at Paris-Nice
Nicolas Roche (Ag2r) has nudged into the top twenty overall after today’s final road stage of Paris-Nice, but any hopes of a stage result were scuppered when an early breakaway built a fifteen minute lead never to be seen by the field again.
Last year’s revelation of Paris-Nice, Thomas De Gendt today took a solo win that he won’t forget for a long time. The Vancansoleil rider broke clear with Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) less than a quarter ways through the mammoth 219.5km stage.
By the halfway point their lead had stretched to twelve minutes on a peloton that was clearly content to let two riders well down on GC fight it out for the stage win.
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De Gendt always looked the more likely of the escapees, taking the Col des Lèques, Col de Luens and Côte de Peyroules before coming to the final climb of the day, the first category Col de Vence; the summit of which was still 55km from the finish.
De Gendt attacked Taaramae around 3kms from the top and rode all the way to the finish alone. His Estonian breakaway companion managed to hang on for second, crossing the line some 6:18 down on the winner.
Another three minutes would pass before former FBD Ras rider John Degenkolb (Project 1T4i) led the bunch home for third. Roche was 12th in that bunch sprint and so took 14th on the stage.
He has moved up five places on GC to 20th overall with just tomorrow’s 9.6km TT from Nice up the first cat Col d’Eze remaining. Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) stays in the leader’s yellow jersey heading into the final TT stage.
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The big news of the day was three crashes by one of Wiggins’ main GC rivals Levi Leipheimer’s (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) who lost 12 minutes on the peloton and is now out of contention. He hit the deck twice coming off the final mountain.
Stage 7: Sisteron – Nice 219.5 kilometres
1. Thomas De Gendt (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM 5:11:48
2. Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis Le Credit En Ligne 0:06:18
3. John Degenkolb (Ger) Project 1T4i 0:09:24
4. Greg Henderson (NZl) Lotto-Belisol Team
5. Thor Hushovd (Nor) BMC Racing Team
6. Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team
7. Romain Feillu (Fra) Vacansoleil-DCM
8. Simon Clarke (Aus) GreenEdge Cycling Team
9. Xavier Florencio Cabre (Spa) Katusha Team
10. Grega Bole (Slo) Lampre - ISD
14. Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale same
General Classification
1. Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 27:53:04
2. Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM 0:00:06
3. Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:18
4. Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha Team 0:00:37
5. Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:00:39
6. Maxime Monfort (Bel) RadioShack-Nissan 0:00:46
7. Arnold Jeannesson (Fra) FDJ-Bigmat 0:01:06
8. Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:01:16
9. Robert Kiserlovski (Cro) Astana Pro Team 0:01:21
10. Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Katusha Team 0:02:24
20. Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale at 4 minutes, 27 seconds
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