photo credits @ Paris-Nice
A short, explosive stage from Nice to Auron saw Michael Storer (Tudor) rise to victory at the summit. The Australian climber attacked early in the day and proved to be the strongest in a 15-man breakaway that also featured Julian Alaphilippe, who gave his all to lead his teammate toward the stage win and the 4th position in the general classification.
In 2nd place in the overall standings, Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) gained 3 seconds on Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), who retains the yellow and white jersey on the eve of the final stage around Nice, while Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) is now 3rd (+1’20’’) after Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) crashed out of the race. This is Storer’s 7th professional victory, the 5th on French roads and the 3rd in the UCI World Tour after he took two stages of La Vuelta 21 in a similar fashion.
Big battle for the break
Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) accelerated as soon as the flag dropped, a move that was followed by a flurry of attacks, with the first climb of the day, the cat-2 Côte d’Aspremont (summit at km 19.6), becoming the perfect launchpad for many more attackers.
After 17 kilometers, two groups merged to form a 15-man break of the day with Kelland O’Brien, Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla), Josh Tarling (Ineos), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Ivan Romeo (Movistar), Julian Alaphilippe, Storer, Johan Jacobs, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Neilson Powless, Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Clément Izquierdo (Cofidis), Alexandre Delettre and Jordan Jegat (Total Energies).
Skjelmose goes down
Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek and UAE Team Emirates-XRG took turns at the front of the peloton to control the gap, which rose to 3’10’’ (km 68). However, efforts on the part of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Bahrain Victorious and XDS-Astana later brought the gap down to 1’45’’ at the base of the climb to Auron.
Storer rises
Storer set the pace at the front, as Schmid was the last rider to keep up with the Australian climber, who eventually went solo inside the final 2.5km. Never looking back, Storer took the stage win, moving him up from 13th to 4th in the overall standings.
Behind him, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) shook up the GC group, with the Austrian climber finishing 6th (+57’’), ahead of the French neo-pro (+1’04’’), while Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) followed with a gap of 1’11’’, just 3 seconds ahead of the rest of the GC contenders.
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