{"id":168038,"date":"2025-03-15T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/the-inner-ring-paris-nice-stage-7-preview-3\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T05:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T05:00:12","slug":"the-inner-ring-paris-nice-stage-7-preview-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/the-inner-ring-paris-nice-stage-7-preview-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Ring | Paris-Nice Stage 7 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An uphill dash to Auron as bad weather prompts a course change to avoid the climb and especially the descent of the Col St. Martin from La Colmiane.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been tuning in during the week, today\u2019s finish is earlier than usual.<\/p>\n

Beurk! Le Temps<\/strong>: add wind and rain, subtract Tim Merlier and the result is Mads Pedersen. The Dane got his stage win thanks to grim conditions. A tailwind saw the stage finish well ahead of the fastest schedule and it wasn\u2019t just because the riders longed for a hot shower.<\/p>\n

After Remi Cavagna went solo, Visma-LAB split the field and the likes of Jo\u00e3o Almeida and Lenny Martinez were caught out.<\/p>\n

Pedersen\u2019s victory looked like a formality but he hadn\u2019t been sprinting so well recently and Josh Tarling came very close.<\/p>\n

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The Route<\/strong>: last year\u2019s stage to Auron was re-routed to the Madonne d\u2019Utelle so it\u2019s back to Auron but snow means a late change and the climb of the Col St. Martin to La Colmiane has been scrapped because the descent could be icy.<\/p>\n

The first climb goes to Aspremont via the Col de Baisse, listed as 9km at 5% it\u2019s more like 6km and with no big surprises. Anyone who can escape here will find the long valley roads afterwards suit the chasers.<\/p>\n

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The Finish<\/strong>: a 7km ski station summit finish, it\u2019s a big wide regular road for easy access. But the slope does vary in places. It\u2019s a question of measurement as the profile above says the fourth kilometre is \u201conly\u201d 7% but this mid part of the climb has some of the steepest parts too. Either way the last five kilometres are sufficiently steep to be selective. Once into town the course takes a right turn onto a side road and it\u2019s this that has the steepest slope as it takes a short cut to the finish.<\/p>\n

The Contenders<\/strong>: it\u2019ll be hard for a breakaway to get clear as the long roads suit a chase but Visma-Lease A Bike might be happy to see a group of riders without a GC threat stay away for the day, especially as this saves energy for tomorrow\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n

Among those down on GC but able to win the stage is local Neilson Powless<\/strong> (EF Education-Easypost), plus Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull) and Pavel Sivakov (UAE) come to mind but the latter two could be on team duty and neither looks sparkling either. Ben O\u2019Connor<\/strong> (Jayco) is six minutes down on GC so could try the breakaway or to move on the final climb when others don\u2019t need to mark up.<\/p>\n

Matteo Jorgenson<\/strong> (Visma-LAB) is an obvious pick, in yellow, a local and he\u2019s been punchy for time bonuses even if a stage win on two climbs has eluded him.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Almeida<\/strong> (UAE) and Lenny Martinez<\/strong> (Bahrain) have both shown what they can do uphill and both have a bit more room to move today even if they might prefer to wait as late as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nJorgenson, Almeida<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nSkjelmose, Powless<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nMartinez, Tejada, Champoussin, O\u2019Connor<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Weather<\/strong>: sunshine and showers, it\u2019ll be 14\u00b0C on the coast but gradually get colder in land with 7\u00b0C by the foot of the climb to Auron.<\/p>\n

TV<\/strong>: 90 minutes with the finish forecast for 3.00pm CET<\/strong>. This then allows you to watch Tirreno-Adriatico\u2019s summit finish which should arrive at 5.00pm Euro time.<\/p>\n

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Postcard from Auron<\/strong>
This is the twin ski resort with Isola-2000, both are owned by the Alpes-Maritime department and sit almost opposite each other on the Tin\u00e9e valley, Auron to the west, Isola to the east, don\u2019t turn off but stick to the valley road and you begin the mighty Col de la Bonette. Paris-Nice tried to come to Auron last year but there was too much snow in the valley. Bad for a bike race, but just the sort of publicity a ski resort loves.<\/p>\n

Cycling and skiing are almost opposite sports, one involves sliding down a mountain in winter while the other often requires pedalling up in summer but there\u2019s of course overlap.<\/p>\n

1989 Tour de France winner Greg Lemond started out in downhill skiing. It\u2019s not a thing of the past either as Visma-LAB\u2019s Axel Zingle was also a downhill skier, attending a special sports school where classmates went onto win downhill ski world cups. He stopped and switched to mountain biking.<\/p>\n

Cycling\u2019s quest for safety improvements could learn from downhill skiing. As said here before cycling is really looking at trying to adjust the rate and severity incidence rather an absolute quest to prevent accidents, this is a subtle difference but worth noting as a starting point. Skiing\u2019s governing body FIS has looked at the same and introduced things such as airbags, with the idea that skiers will crash so how to reduce the harm. Similarly bindings are being regulated and race clothing has to be cut-resistant too so that the sharp edges of skis don\u2019t cut into flesh.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An uphill dash to Auron as bad weather prompts a course change to avoid the climb and especially the descent of the Col St. Martin from La Colmiane. If you\u2019ve been tuning in during the week, today\u2019s finish is earlier than usual. Beurk! Le Temps: add wind and rain, subtract Tim Merlier and the result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-168038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}