Nibali

The second UCI WorldTour race of the season sees the unlucky Geraint Thomas impress but Columbian Carlos Bentancur wins for AG2R-La Mondiale.

Betancur has allegedly been overweight through the entire race, making his performance all the more remarkable.
Photo © Tim de Waele.

This year’s Paris-Nice has arguably played second fiddle to the (almost) parallel running of Tirreno-Adriatico. With the latter race attracting the real cream of grand tour talent, typified by Team Sky’s decision to transfer Richie Porte from the French event to Italy, there seemed to be a clear favourite in Vincenzo Nibali despite his main target being the Tour de France in the summer.

It was not to be, however. As the race unfolded it became clear that Nibali has yet to hit any kind of form this season as we notably saw him dropped on the Col d’Eze in the final stage after attacking and struggling at other times too. Seemingly in his place, then, stepped AG2R-La Mondiale rider Carlos Betancur, who deserved his GC victory after wrestling the yellow jersey from Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas and holding onto it until the finish line in Nice.

There were other disappointments too, with the Schleck brothers enduring a torrid time and World Champion Rui Costa proving to be the race’s ‘nearly man’ as he failed to claim his first victory in the famous jersey, eventually finishing second, 14 seconds off the lead.

Instead, it was Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas who impressed in his first and unexpected role as team leader, holding the yellow jersey until stage six and unfortunate to retire from the race following his heavy fall on stage seven as he tried to regain it.

There has also been a notably good start to the season from Garmin-Sharp, who’s rider Tom-Jelte Slagter claimed two stages during this year’s edition of the race, and with other Garmin-Sharp riders popping up for much coverage on TV as they hustle their way through the pelotons, the rest of the season looks bright for the American outfit.

In the end, 46 seconds covered the top ten finishers in GC, including French champion Arthur Vichot, Movistar’s Jose Joaquím Rojas and one of Astana’s big hopes for the Giro d’Italia, Jakub Fuglsang.

Indeed, the close nature of the results indicates that race organisers A.S.O. achieved their aim of a tightly contested race by leaving out high mountaintop finishes and time trials altogether. Ironically, of course, it is this that perhaps meant the vast majority of grand tour contenders have migrated over to the Tirreno-Adriatico this year, much to the consternation of race director Christian Prudhomme ahead of the race in the case of last year’s winner Richie Porte. It will certainly be interesting to see what the parcours will hold next year as A.S.O. look to regain more star riders for their race.

But, the race was there to be won this year and plaudits must go to the eventual winner Carlos Betancur and his team AG2R-La Mondiale who masterminded his two stage wins on the way to yellow and the white jersey (for GC and young rider classifications respectively). The King of the Mountains polkadot jersey was won by Lotto-Belisol’s Pim Ligthart while John Degenkolb secured the points jersey in a competition that was missing the big guns expected to feature later in the season. The team classification went to Movistar.

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