The coronavirus has reshuffled the cards in Paris-Nice which started Sunday morning from the Yvelines with a thinner but attractive peloton, from the French Julian Alaphilippe and Thibaut Pinot to the Slovak Peter Sagan and the Italian Vincenzo Nibali.
Restrictions of all kinds, lighter podium, press conferences canceled, contacts limited to the maximum: the instructions fell on the 78th edition of the "race to the sun" organized by ASO. But, unlike the Italian trials in March removed from the program in the European country most affected by the epidemic, it obtained the green light from the authorities.
đźš© And let's go! The 78th edition of #ParisNice is launched!
đźš© Wheels are rolling! The 78th edition of #ParisNice is underway! pic.twitter.com/YdwhZ7hfHI
Seven teams, however, chose to abstain in the first European stage race of the WorldTour season. The big absent? His name is Egan Bernal, the Colombian who is the last winner. The Tour de France winner's Ineos team has passed over the double motive of the epidemic and the sudden death of its sports director Nicolas Portal.
Alaphilippe in the unknown
In his absence, however, the Colombians have two other trump cards to keep hold of the charts. With Sergio Higuita (EF), who has not raced for a month, however, and his success in the Tour of Colombia, and especially Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), dominator during his last two outings in the south of France.
Second last year, Quintana has the profile to win this time. On the double condition of having kept its effectiveness from mid-February, when it had grown close to the peaks in the ascent of Ventoux at the Tour de la Provence, and to pass without difficulty the plain stages of the beginning of the week, suitable for traps and at the edges if the wind is in the game.
Before the only arrival at the summit, next Saturday at La Colmiane, in the hinterland of Nice, a highlight is expected Wednesday at Saint-Amand-Montrond. The 15-kilometer time trial is scheduled in the lands of Julian Alaphilippe, the winner of the exercise in the last Tour, the form of which however questions.
Back to the Boucles Drôme-Ardèche where he suffered from harsh weather conditions last weekend, "Alaf" goes into the unknown. "The main objective is to win stages", agrees his sporting director Tom Steels who aligns an impressive group with also the Irishman Sam Bennett for the sprints. "But we could also target the general classification according to how things will happen from day to day."
The question mark on the state of form also applies to Thibaut Pinot, who discovers Paris-Nice in his ... 11th season in the peloton, and Romain Bardet whose last two weeks, by his own admission, "have been agitated by the birth "of his son. Much less for the Belgian Dylan Teuns, one of the men to follow throughout the week, and Nibali, already in sight last weekend.
Like Bardet and Sagan, the "Messina Shark" changed direction after the cancellation of Tirreno-Adriatico ("it is important to put kilometers and days of racing in the legs") to strengthen a group that also aligns the world champion, the Danish Mads Pedersen, and the Australian Richie Porte, double winner of Paris-Nice in 2013 and 2015.
For the sprinters who have come in large numbers (Ackermann, Sagan, S. Bennett, Ewan, Viviani, Bouhanni, Bol, Nizzolo, Coquard, Barbier), the start of the week is promising. Even if the finish of the first stage presents a treacherous roughness, the Neauphle-le-Château wall (1400 m at 7.8%) 4.5 kilometers from the finish in Plaisir.
Sport
Paris-Nice: Thibaut Pinot "was never afraid to come" despite the coronavirus
- Roman bardet
- Thibaut Pinot
- Julian Alaphilippe
- Sport
- Cycling
- Cycling