Evenepoel and Bernal (but also Roglic) make the move, but it's Quigg who wins the first stage Paris-Nice: Pedersen II

Olaf Koeg won the opening stage of the Paris-Nice race. After a delicious final stage, where many of the best runners had to abandon their turns, the runner from Visma | Rent a bike that is the fastest for a speed race for a weak group. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) came in second place, and Laurence Piethe (Groupama-FDJ) came in third place.

Paris-Nice, also called Cycle to the sun Mentioned, this year has been largely dominated by the emergence of Remco Evenepoel. Team favorite Soudal Quick-Step, along with Primoz Roglic (BORA-hansgrohe), are seen as favorites ever to take overall victory. “I'm looking forward to riding in France for the first time. Paris-Nice is a great race to get used to France, the crowd, the weather and how the races are done here.” Air ball from Shepdale Partly in the context of his upcoming participation in the Tour de France.

Bissiger, Roach and Burgaw make up the leading group for the day

Before it was Evenpoel and his teammates' turn, a flat ride of more than 157 kilometers was planned for the first day. At least the second half of the trip included a number of nasty obstacles. This would start with the Cote d'Herbeville, which had to be conquered for the first of two times a total of nearly sixty kilometers from the finish (with the second test forty kilometers from the finish). A few walls will follow (with double-digit gradients), followed by a treacherous final phase. The final kilometer was up 2.2 percent, so we had to look for runners with substance. So Pedersen and De Lee were immediately ranked as top candidates.

Three brave guests took the initiative early in the competition: Matteo Borgaudo (TotalEnergies), Jonas Roach and Stefan Bisseger (both from EF Education-EasyPost). The trio managed to build a maximum lead of around three minutes, while the sprinter team led the peloton. In a fairly quiet opening stage (read: the first 120km) little to nothing happened and we were looking at a 'peloton chasing the leading group' scenario.

Borgodo and Roach with a strange “battle” on mountain points

In the lead group there were quite a few things to notice while climbing. Bessiger completely ignored himself in service to Roach, who then had to attempt to crown himself the Tour's first King of the Mountain. Due to the endless “poker” between the German and Burgaudeau, the duo was no longer running for points and were also caught by the peloton. Special action, although they can still try to break out of the large group. No one else was interested, so Roach and Borgado remained in the running for the King of the Mountain title. The tall German rewarded his Swiss teammate's work in this race.

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Well, after those scenes, there were still 37 kilometers to go. Will we enter the final stage with a full platoon or will there be several more attacks? It didn't really seem like that, as the teams of sprinters (or teams of strong sprinters) were more or less in control.

Evenepoel (but also Roglic) is lively, and Bernal proves to be at his best again

So the calm before the storm? Yes, because that storm definitely came. When sprinting for the extra seconds – the race was won by Visma's Matthieu Jorgenson Rent a bike – Evenpoel took second place. Evenepoel would not be Evenepoel if he continued strongly after that race. Patrick Lefebvre's group got things together, with Jorgenson, Egan Bernal (who is improving by the day) and a couple of gentlemen from Lotto-Destiny at the wheel. However, no one wanted to continue with Evenpoel and so the rest of the team (at least a large part) joined again. Among them was Pedersen, who left a strong impression.

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All eyes were on the next climb, the second ascent of the Côte d'Herpeville. It was clear that gentlemen like Fabio Jacobsen and Dylan Groenewegen (read: pure runners) had no chance on Sunday afternoon: Hulk van Heukeleum For example, in the final stage, he was already more than a minute behind the favorite group, where Wolf pack Adjust speed. De Lie was not there either: the Belgian was probably still suffering a lot from his crash at Le Samyn.

Quigg overtakes Pedersen in an exciting sprint

What did we see there? Bernal with attack! However, Evenpool did not let that happen and did his best. Primoz Roglic found his wheel, and then everything stopped again. However, the group was greatly divided and the question was who could return to the front group. Meanwhile, there were attacks here and there, but no one really escaped. The attacks of Omar Frayel, Anthony Turges and others were neutralized (albeit to the extreme).

So there may be a quick race to achieve stage victory at the front. The last kilometer was very uphill, which of course caused the speed to drop dramatically. Pedersen started running from the front, but… Cheetah from Numansdorp It was too fast for him. A big victory for Quigg, which returned Pedersen to second place. Pithie completed the podium, and Niels Ehhoff finished fourth.

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Results of stage 1 Paris-Nice 2024

Results supported by FirstCycling.com