Paris-Nice Preview

Another Roglic-Remco early season face-off after Catalunya last year.

Stage One took place yesterday, and Stage Two is currently going on. I won’t spoil what happened yet, but I’ll preview the remaining stages.

Stage Three is a 27km Team Time Trial with a few small hills. They won’t affect the outcome, this is all about team strength. There are some strong teams here; I’m not sure who will take this one. I don’t envisage huge GC gaps.

Stage Four is a 183 km medium mountain day with over 3,300 meters of climbing mostly in 2-5k climbs. But there are a lot. This would be a raid potential stage if it was later in the race. As it is the first GC test, I imagine Roglic and Remco will just wait until the final 3k 7% climb and it will basically be a sprint. It probably suits Roglic a bit better.

Stage Five is 193km with a few hills, but likely another sprint.

Stage Six is 198km with a few short steep ramps in the finale, but I think they are too far out from the finish line to affect the sprint.

Stage Seven is 173km with over 4k elevation meters, but the profile doesn’t look that hard. There are basically two 7k/7% climbs in the finale. That is literally Pogacar’s dream! But he’s not here. I don’t think the route is hard enough to make it more than an uphill sprint between R&R. I’ll give Roglic another Dub.

Stage Eight is the traditional short hilly finale around Nice. This is a possible raid stage but more likely is the GC teams just strangling things as UAE did last year for a Pogacar demonstration. I think Remco will win this stage with a late attack and snipe the GC off of Roglic.

So that’s my prediction given away. I’ll say third place will be taken by Mattias Skjelmose.

I like Olav Kooij and Mads Pedersen for the sprints.

All in all, this won’t be the most interesting edition of Paris-Nice because of the subpar route, but it’s always good to see members of the Big Four going at it before the Grand Tours. Hopefully nobody crashes.

Tirreno Preview up next.

Jamie