Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) came out swinging on the opening stage of Paris Nice with several dangerous attacks in the closing kilometres of the 164km stage to La Verrière, despite a profile designed for sprinters.
The two-time Tour de France winner opted to ride the Race to the Sun instead of Tirreno-Adriatico and made his form, and GC intentions, known early in the eight-day stage race.
Pogačar’s first attack came on the last climb of the day at Côte de Milon-la-Chapelle with 20km to go, when he took off with Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost) after sprinting for KOM points at the top of the Cat. 3 ascent. They then carried their momentum over the summit.
Pogačar’s first move was ultimately unsuccessful but caused panic in the scattered peloton, creating a small group of favourites at the front.
Powless then capitalised on the chaos and launched another bold move out of the reduced front group and this time caught opened a bigger gap.
When Powless was again brought back, Pogačar saw a flash of opportunity once again, this time with seven kilometres to go as the special sprint point neared.
“Vingegaard said in the middle of the race that we go after the bonus sprint, but, then we got the gap too,” Pogačar explained after the stage.
Pogačar nabbed the precious six-second time bonus and looked back to see defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) and Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) along for the ride.
For a moment, it looked as though the move might come to fruition, but when Pogacar noticed Vingegaard wasn’t pulling through, he realized the chances of holding off the sprinters was minimal and quickly gave up the effort.
“With just two guys working, it was not enough and there was also a headwind,” Pogačar said.
“Then it was obvious it was going to be a sprint, so I sat up, waited in the bunch and went safely across the finish line. I saw that he [Vingegaard] was not pulling at all, so it was no point to continue.
“So I decided to sit up and save a little bit of the legs for the next day.”
Pogačar admitted to not feeling great before the stage but he still went on the attack.
“At the start, I felt a bit shit, but every hour in I felt a little better. So I hope the next days will allow me to do something.”