Paris-Nice 2021 will therefore neither have started in Paris nor finished in Nice.

While the "race in the sun" traditionally sees its last stage being judged on the Promenade des Anglais, it will not be this year.

The routes of the last two stages of the cycling race will take place, Saturday and Sunday, in the hinterland of Nice due to the local confinement imposed, announced Friday March 12 the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi.

The race will end in Levens, instead of the traditional finish at the emblematic site of the Nice metropolis.

"The organization of Paris-Nice has proposed a plan B, outside the confined zone", declared on France Bleu Azur the mayor of Nice, specifying that the 7th stage will start from Broc and will end as planned in Valdeblore La Colmiane.

Sunday's shortened stage will start from the Plan du Var, around thirty kilometers north of Nice, and will take the form of a quasi-loop.

ASO formalizes the change of course for the last two stages of #ParisNice.

The 7th stage will end well at La Colmiane but will start from Le Broc.

The 8th and last stage on Sunday will be over 92km, with a circuit to be repeated 3 times between Plan-du-Var and Levens.

pic.twitter.com/mvdBu4vZc9

- The Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) March 12, 2021

The technical details remain to be specified by the organizing company ASO, also responsible for the Tour de France.

In 2020, the last stage had been canceled

In a press release, the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture warned Thursday that "in any case, these stages can only take place outside the confined area and behind closed doors".

The confinement modalities of the two previous weekends were renewed by the prefecture because of a health situation qualified as "still very worrying" and the "extremely strong" pressure on the hospitals of the department.

This reconfinement applies from Friday 6 p.m. to Monday 6 a.m. and concerns 63 coastal municipalities, from Théoule-sur-mer, in the west of the department, to Menton, on the Italian border, including the city of Nice.

Already in 2020, the race could not take place on the famous seaside for its arrival, which coincided with the day after the announcement, by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, of the first confinement to come: the last stage of the test had been canceled altogether.

With AFP

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