Arnaud Demare narrowly wins stage 1 of Paris-Nice
Paris-Nice 2018
Stage 1
Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) won the first stage of the 2018 edition of Paris-Nice on Sunday in a photo finish sprint ahead of Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida).
So close were the two riders on the line that it took several minutes for the verdict to arrive that Démare edged the win by a matter of millimetres.
In a blanket finish, Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) and Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal) also produced late surges to finish third and fourth either side of the top two, finishing within half a wheel of them.
For Démare, it was the second year in a row that he has won the opening stage of Paris-Nice, while for his team it was a victory on their first ever stage riding under the name of their new sponsors, Groupama.
He was the only sprinter to be able to contest the finish, with most of the top ten made up of puncheurs and climbers.
It briefly looked as though Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r) might have been able to hold off the bunch and win the stage having attacked at the foot of the 2km drag to the finish, but a strong turn at the front of the bunch from Izagirre’s teammate Ivan Garcia ensured he was caught in sprint.
A crash 2.5km thinned out the bunch and took out several big names, including GC contenders Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana). As the finish was uphill, the usual 3km does not apply, meaning everyone held up will lose time on the GC.
