Sam Bennett in shake-up as Paris Nice batters peloton again
The second stage of Paris-Nice was an absolute cracker with wind and rain making life absolute misery for the riders.
By Brian Canty
It has been another chaotic stage at Paris-Nice with some of those who gained time on stage 1 losing it in another wind and rain-lashed contest.
Sonny Colbrelli of Bahrain-Merida was the winner at the end of 195km from Rochefort-en-Yvelines to Amilly.
From an Irish perspective it was a solid, if unspectacular, day.
Sam Bennett rode strongly to finish 11th while general classification hopeful Dan Martin also stayed in touch.
That was despite some nervy moments for Dan Martin when his group fell far behind the front group.
Despite the course being rather flat, it was run off at a searing pace. In the first hour when the riders covered a whopping 49 kilometres.
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That took a huge toll on the peloton with former winner Richie Porte (BMC Racing) one of the big casualties early on.
He would concede a huge amount of time to rule him out of overall contention.
His team later confirmed that he had been feeling unwell so perhaps it was no surprise to see him struggle on terrain where he would usually go well.
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Sam Bennett took 11th place on the stage but looked very strong on what was a really testing day at Paris-Nice.
A total of 22 riders raced off the front and in there was the flying Sam Bennett. The Bennett group was soon trimmed to 13, with Dan Martin over a minute behind.
However, there was still plenty racing left at this point. Crucially, Martin was surrounded by riders with eyes on the yellow jersey.
Ion Izaguirre (Bahrain-Merida), Simon Yates (Orica-Scott), Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Michael Matthews (Sunweb) were just some of those with him.
With helicopters grounded for the stage due to the strong winds it was difficult to know what was going on at times with so much chopping and changing.
What was clear was with 50 kilometres to go a group of seven escaped.
In there were Sven Bystrom (Katusha-Alpecin), Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Martin Wynants (LottoNL-Jumbo), Marc Sarreau (FDJ) and Evaldas Siskevicius (Delko Marseille Provence KTM). Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors) would later join.
Gilbert was the only GC contender present and he struck out for glory with 20 kilometres to go.
However, after a strong effort he was reeled in 13 kilometres later as the bunch, led by Team Sky and FDJ, ramped up the pace, the latter for race leader Arnaud Demare of FDJ.
A sprint was the inevitable outcome but the winner certainly wasn't. Colbrelli took an emotional victory for Bahrain-Merida.
He beat John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and yesterday's winner and race leader Demare.
Dan Martin was 28th in the same time as the victor and remains seventh overall going into stage three tomorrow.
He is 23 seconds down on Demare and as there are two categorised climbs in the latter half of the race tomorrow it's quite possible a shake-up of sorts is on the cards.
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