The first important stage race of the year (and its random weather conditions) shall start on Sunday the 8th in France, one day before Tirreno-Adriatico.
This year, the course completely avoids the Massif Central, but pays a brief visit into Morvan.
Despite the avoidance of the Massif Central, looking at profiles, there seems to be only 1 stage guaranteed for pure sprinters (the 2nd). The first one may smile upon sprinters-punchers, but even the stage going down the Rhône valley ends with climbs for punchers or punchers-climbers.
We may keep an eye on (among others):
- Vingegaard🇩🇰 from Visma, for his first race since his withdrawal from the European Championship last year;
Almeida🇵🇹 from UAE, a little bit sluggish so far;- Ayuso🇪🇸
& Skjelmose🇩🇰from Lidl-Trek; - Onley🇬🇧 & Vauquelin🇫🇷 from Ineos;
- Gaudu🇫🇷 & Costiou🇫🇷 from FDJ, if you are French and masochist, or if they raise the level they showed lately;
- L. Martinez🇫🇷 from Barhein.
Stages profiles
stage 1 (Sunday the 8th): 
stage 2: 
stage 3 (Team Time Trial): 
stage 4: 
stage 5: 
stage 6: 
stage 7: 
stage 8 (Sunday the 15th): 
Stage 5
Another 3 riders didn’t start. A Jayco and Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) withdrew early in the stage too.
- Sivakov was crap already on the TTT, and yesterday probably didn’t help.
- Jayco is down to 3 riders.
Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) is dropped by the peloton in or at the top of the first 3rd category climb of the day…
20 km farther, Gaudu🇫🇷’s goin’ home… ➡️ 🏚️
I thought it could be one of his early failures when a stage starts quickly on a hilly terrain and the battle for breakaway remains intense for 1 or 2 hours, and then he recovers and catches up with the main groups, as he is familiar with tis type of temporary failures, but no.
Stage 4
Rain, échelons, and large splits in the peloton early in the race, with many co-leaders trapped.
Several crashes in the front group:
- First, Russo🇫🇷, leaving Gaudu🇫🇷 (!) as the only Frenchman ahead in this group of almost 40 riders.
- Then, a sextuple crash wiped out Ineos (Onley🇬🇧 and Tarling🇬🇧) and caused 1 or 2 withdrawals, including Hoole🇳🇱. Apparently, the Ineos riders managed to get back in the group.
Looks to be a hard stage, hope the finale won’t disappoint!
It didn’t.
Bora was super strong, especially the Van Dijke🇳🇱 brothers. D.F. Martinez not so much, he could follow his teammates but couldn’t raise the pace, as we could see as early as the Intermediate Sprint. Anyway, Bora lead basically all day long. It is a pity for the Van Dijke brothers that they stopped their effort in the TTT and arrived several minutes later than their leaders yesterday…
After the Ayuso🇪🇸 crash, there were 2 or 3 guys from the Gaudu🇫🇷* group who were trying to make the jump to the Bora group individually, they came as close as perhaps 25 metres for the closest one, but then they disappeared.
Gaudu🇫🇷 who was falling twice a week last year, picked today amongst all days, not to fall. But even though he finishes in a good group and will get a good position in GC, he isn’t so great: his group was mostly made of riders coming from the ‘peloton’ who chased all day and yet beat him, and he barely distanced the sprinter Plowright (🇦🇺 Alpecin) in the final, very hard climb. Steinhauser (🇩🇪 EF) who attacked in the previous hills and rode more than 25 km alone finishes 1mn30 ahead of him.
Vauquelin🇫🇷 seems pissed at his team, but we don’t know how he managed not to be in the first 40 riders in the first miles of the day despite starting at the front of the peloton, as white jersey wearer. Even late in the stage, after regrouping with several guys from the front, Vauquelin🇫🇷’s group was basically always losing time to the sole 3 then 2 Bora riders pulling in the remains of the front group. Betting on Onley🇬🇧 seemed sensible. The problem is that he turned out being diminished by his little crash, and was ‘killed’ much later by his bike change.
I see Piganzolli (🇮🇹 Visma) DNF. Did he crash? He wasn’t in the front group, was he? There was only one Visma with Vingegaard🇩🇰, and I don’t remember it was him.
The slaughter of favourites and outsiders turns out good, not for a victory, but for a top-10 or top- for French riders Vauquelin, Gaudu and L. Martinez.
Vauquelin🇫🇷 seems pissed at his team, but we don’t know how he managed not to be in the first 40 riders in the first miles of the day despite starting at the front of the peloton, as white jersey wearer.
It sounds like he was more pissed at a Soudal-QS rider who would have ‘pushed’ him into a field at the start of the stage.
It was Affini with Vingegaard. I noticed during the race, with everyone crashing and the rain and the slick roads and the cold, Vingegaard managed to smile a little smile at the camera a couple of times. I think he felt he had a good day despite the conditions and he’s clearly the strongest. I would have wanted to see Ayuso contest his win, but if you don’t stay on the bike you don’t win races…
It was Affini with Vingegaard.
Right!
I noticed during the race, with everyone crashing and the rain and the slick roads and the cold, Vingegaard managed to smile a little smile at the camera a couple of times. I think he felt he had a good day despite the conditions and he’s clearly the strongest.
Indeed, he avoided crashes by staying at the front of the group despite being (almost) isolated. At least, that’s what happened for the Ayuso🇪🇸 crash. By the way, Lidl-Trek is really having a ‘wonderful’ start of the year! Jesus…
Wow, lots of crashes today. Not nice to see people get so hurt.
That’s right but on the other hand, you have sprint stages which are a borefest and cause more crashes, withdrawals and injuries [edit: the list of DNFs expanded since] than this 200 km epic non-stop battle. And you could see Vingegaard cruising in romper suit!
Most riders seem to be within delays, according to the listing on the official site.
The Ayuso crash is the one that caused most withdrawals, apparently; or did the 2 Movistar guys who withdrew (not Romeo, 2 other ones) crash another time?
But that crash was on a standard road, a slight curve with nothing special, no steep slope or anything. It was not filmed so we cannot know what happened. One first crash and then the work of disc brakes, like we saw last year (was it on the Tour of Italy?)?
Stage 3 (Individual Team Time Trial)
I believed that Visma would do better than this. They looked good during the stage, but perhaps they were not comfortable with the new format, and willing to kill two birds with one stone wasn’t the best idea. Anyway, it is not a serious failure either.
Décathlon killed its own birds: by attempting to win the stage, they destroyed any hope for Prodhomme🇫🇷 in GC.
Lidl-Trek did better than I thought. Thus, that’s really good for Ayuso🇪🇸.
UAE did whatever.
We could believe FDJ had done better than expected, but then other teams either did better than Visma, or piled up just before or just after their time, so the result is very average. Unexpectedly, Cofidis managed to finish in the exact same time, this is a good surprise for them.
Farther, it was a bit the same for Bahrein and L. Martinez🇫🇷. While it looked like they would lose about 45 seconds, it wasn’t that bad, but they end up with being a bit over 1 minute behind both Ineos leaders and Ayuso🇪🇸.
Stage 2
Some of the same guys as yesterday in a breakaway who only went ahead for mountain points: C. Pedersen🇩🇰, Le Berre🇫🇷, his caravan and 0 chance or intent to reach the finish. So I left after they scored the last points, because there were not going to go anywhere. I came back by chance for the Intermediate Sprint, to see Ayuso🇪🇸 get a few bonus seconds (as he was doing in Algarve).
Then I left again and completely forgot about this so promising stage, which was long finished when I finally remembered it existed. So I missed all the crashes, which were the only ‘interesting’ thing that could happen on this stage.
Stage 1
The punchy climbs in the circuit made zero difference. And nobody really tried, apparently, except Costiou in the final metres. I say ‘apparently’ because, like yesterday, the TV director didn’t show us the peloton in the climb 🙄
So it was an almost complete bunch for the finish. Combine this with the most idiotic last km design I have seen in a while, and of course there were 2 crashes at and a bit after the narrow curve, and the sprint was only disputed between the few riders who weren’t stopped by the crashes.
The final circuit in general was also one of the ugliest ones I ever saw. On top of this crappy, narrow, width-changing last km: industrial areas, roundabouts and traffic separators, road works, earth-moving areas, waste grounds, forsaken roads, scrapyards, gipsy camps and an unusual amount of gendarmes to make sure they don’t start driving up the road.
While EF are finally sticking their head out of the water, Picnic isn’t. Only their sprinters made it to the finish in the same time as the peloton; all other riders are several minutes behind: so much for GC…
Not the greatest route design to be sure, Vingegaard was also quite critical after the race. I actually thought the break had a chance until Amirail took the front, he’s clearly in great shape.
I actually thought the break had a chance until Amirail took the front, he’s clearly in great shape.
The chase was strange. Between -60 and -50 km, the peloton was speeding like maniacs; I remember a downhill false flat, were they were spinning pedals like crazy, the camera motorbike at the front was suffering, hitting 30 km/h speed bumps at an actual speed of perhaps 80 km/h… It was at that moment very different from a few past editions, where crashes would happen because the peloton would go very slowly for hours (close to 35 km/h) and the riders would lose their concentration.
Then there were times were they gave up 40 seconds for free. Climb were ridden on alternative current, sometimes the breakaway would go faster, sometimes slower.
Yes, after the gap had been oscillating around 1mn – 1mn15 for 40 km, it looked like the breakaway had done the hardest part, and yet that’s when they really started to lose time.
The chase was strange. Between -60 and -50 km, the peloton was speeding like maniacs; I remember a downhill false flat, were they were spinning pedals like crazy, the camera motorbike at the front was suffering, hitting 30 km/h speed bumps at an actual speed of perhaps 80 km/h… It was at that moment very different from a few past editions, where crashes would happen because the peloton would go very slowly for hours (close to 35 km/h) and the riders would lose their concentration.
From what I could check on PCS, it seems that it was the fastest first stage of Paris-Nice ever.
(To define ‘ever’, I only checked a bit more than 10 years and assume earlier ones would be slower…)
We may keep an eye on (among others):
- Vingegaard🇩🇰 from Visma, for his first race since his withdrawal from the European Championship last year;
- Almeida🇵🇹 from UAE, a little bit sluggish so far;
Almeida🇵🇹, ill, won’t start. McNulty🇺🇸 will thus represent UAE.
We may keep an eye on (among others):
- Ayuso🇪🇸 & Skjelmose🇩🇰 from Lidl-Trek;
Skjelmose🇩🇰 won’t start either because of some pain in a wrist.
I hadn’t listed him, but Poole (🇬🇧 Picnic) is also out.
If it goes on like this, we may award the victory to Vingegaard and save everyone one week of effort 😆
Well, there’s still Ayuso. I hope Vingegaard wins, not only because he’s my compatriot but also because it’s a week-long race he hasn’t won. I’d love to see him win the big ones, so far he has won: Basque, Dauphiné, Tirreno, Pologne.
That leaves (of the big ones): Romandie, Suisse, and Paris Nice.
It’s doable, I think, and could be a career goal.
The big question here is if Vingegaard can win it, and I personally think he can. I’ve heard other people say it’s not hard enough, though. But I think we’re underestimating his punchyness, the only rider consistently more punchy on hard stages is Pog.
Yeah. I don’t see any particularly frightening competitor for him, if he is in shape.
Pure punchers are generally not consistent (as you highlighted) over a week. Several may win stages, but for GC that should be more difficult for them.
We’ve seen Ayuso🇪🇸 and Almeida🇵🇹 on the Tour of Algarve, and they struggled to make differences with Seixas🇫🇷, Onley🇬🇧 and Riccitello🇺🇸, so this bunch of riders seem pretty much the same, there isn’t one who stands out and appears dominant.
For the TTT, he will have Affini🇮🇹 and Armirail🇫🇷 with him (both won mixed TTT at EC or WC in recent years), so even there his team will probably be favourite, and that would give him a small safety mattress as soon as stage #3.
Gaudu🇫🇷 & Costiou🇫🇷 from FDJ, if you are French and masochist, or if they raise the level they showed lately;
Gaudu was dropped in a climb and DNF today on the Trofeo Laegi Legaigla Laigui Laigueglia🇮🇹. Not sure if he reached the circuit…
Trofeo Laguguigugiglia is a pretty good race, surprised there was no TV this year (every year?). Rai usually has all the minor hilly Italian races.
Oh, and this (minimal but existing) coverage allowed me to understand for the first time, when I recognised the Capo Mele name in the mouth of the Italian commentator, that this race was in fact located in the area near San Remo.
And Laigueglia is simply the name of the coastal town just before that capo in Milan–San-Remo, here ridden in the opposite way inside the final circuit.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/MJa2HUFAuLFcF1iF9 (zoom out)
TV coverage is mandatory for a .Pro I think. It was planned but cancelled a few days before the race, perhaps due to the change of organiser. Yet there was some coverage: on the Youtube channel of the Lega, they showed the last 24 km or so, at 5 PM as pre-recorded (very slightly pre-recorded, broadcasted right as the race was finishing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmSb23CMWnc
It is not the first time I watch an Italian race this way, on a Youtube channel of the League or of the Ministry of Sports. I can’t remember which one(s) exactly, perhaps one of the Autumn classics, perhaps the Settimana Internazionale C&B or the Tour of Abbruzo. Hmm, checking my old posts in French, it cannot be Abruzzo as that tour was shown on traditional TV in France. Anyway, I already watched a race or two this way 😀
Not in Italy, but I remember watching the Tour of Greece (Hellas) on Youtube too: https://www.youtube.com/@tourofhellas/streams I see that they uploaded a presentation of the (May) 2026 race: 1h45 with 5 minutes of interest and the rest of suits and ties’ speeches, apparently 😅
