The third stage to La Loge des Gardes was anything but smooth sailing for the Paris-Nice riders on Wednesday. The first hilly day of the race was contested in very difficult conditions, which led to the race being neutralized nearly fifty kilometres from the finish. The peloton still resumed racing for the final, where Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet fought to limit his losses. At the top of the final climb, the French rider took sixteenth place, which is also his overall position on Wednesday evening.
After two days for the sprinters and a team time trial, it was now time for the climbers to appear on stage this Wednesday in the 83rd edition of Paris-Nice. A summit finish at the Loge des Gardes (6.7 km at 7.1%) was on the menu for them after around one hundred and fifty kilometres and a few smaller climbs as an appetizer. Eight riders entered the first breakaway on the least hilly section of the course, but the day’s scenario then got less smooth with the rain appearing at halfway point and with the first attacks within the bunch more than fifty kilometres from the finish. The race therefore properly got underway on the climbs of Croix Bruyère and Canon, but it was suddenly stopped a few minutes later on a downhill section. “We expected rain in the final, we had seen the forecast, but we certainly didn’t expect hail,” explained Benoît Vaugrenard. “The road became really slippery, and the race was neutralized. The temperature dropped from twelve to three degrees for the riders. They were frozen, chilled.”
“We absolutely had to make sure we didn’t miss the right move,” Benoît Vaugrenard
A quite confusing thirty minutes then passed, during which the riders got changed at the car before setting off again in small groups and completing a long downhill section at a very slow pace. After a break of about forty-five minutes, the peloton regrouped thirty kilometers from the finish line, and a new start was given, taking into account the gaps recorded at the time of the neutralization. “The weather got better, the race resumed, but the cold had taken a toll on the rider’s bodies,” explained Benoît. “It was difficult to get back into it, especially since the new start was given at the bottom of a climb. We absolutely had to make sure we didn’t miss the right move from the new start. It was important to be ready, to refocus, which we did.” Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet and his teammates were therefore able to follow when the race resumed fast, and the French climber still had three teammates in a small peloton approaching the penultimate climb, the Côte de la Chabanne. Around thirty riders were left in the pack after this climb, including the Groupama-FDJ leader and his Luxembourg teammate Kevin Geniets, while the breakaway still had a thirty-second gap.
After a short descent, the riders finally tackled the final climb of the Loge des Gardes, and following a strong pace on the first slopes, the attacks began four kilometres from the finish line. Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet initially remained in touch but was forced to take his own pace three kilometres from the summit. Joao Almeida won the fight between the favourites, while the French climber crossed the finish line a minute later in sixteenth place. “Guillaume fought well and we’re pretty much where we should be,” commented Benoît. “We limited our losses well, especially compared to other riders who got overwhelmed as soon as the race restarted. On the final climb, it was just a matter of legs.” After this first battle between the top riders, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet entered the top 20 overall, in sixteenth position, while a very steep finish looms on Thursday on the Côte-Saint-André.
