This mid-March week is always rich with storylines thanks to the layering of two WorldTour stage races in Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. They’re both old races, and they’re both important form gauges for riders of all shapes and sizes, whether they’re GC contenders looking ahead to Grand Tours or Classics specialists honing their skillsets before they return to one-day racing.
One of the key stories out of both 2025 events has been the weather. In both France and Italy, everything from torrential rain to crosswinds and even snow have played a role, as have crashes, some related to the conditions, some just bad luck – Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) were two of the most notable crash withdrawals from Paris-Nice.
But the racing continued, and the winners have been crowned.
At Paris-Nice, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) took a second-consecutive overall victory in dramatic style after he and the team rallied following Vingegaard’s withdrawal. The 25-year-old was joined on the podium by best young rider Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers).
At Tirreno-Adriatico, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) scored what looks like a fairly dominant win ahead of the remarkable Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious).
There’s so much more behind those headlines, though. Here are just some of the key takeaways from Europe’s first WorldTour stage races of the season.
Paris-Nice turns American
The race to the sun lived up to its billing, just about, with sun finally shining on the final stage which is always a thriller. The battle for the breakaway was so fraught that the peloton had split in two by the halfway point, many left just to grovel their way to the finish line. Among the dropped riders were all five of Jorgenson’s remaining teammates, which put pressure on the race leader, but others were in trouble too, thanks in large part to the Ineos Grenadiers.
The British team and their young leaders had managed to get three into contention where other top teams were lacking, including Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG. This both gave Magnus Sheffield a perfect opportunity to spring off the front in the closing stages, and left Thymen Arensman and Tobias Foss in the group protecting the former’s podium finish.
It was the perfect situation for Ineos, with Sheffield also not too far from the overall podium, which meant that Foss could mark the mayhem in the group and ensure both his teammates were looked after, for stage and podium success.
Jorgenson meanwhile, could enjoy his 37-second buffer and take advantage of his rivals’ attention on Ineos. The race leader himself snuck away from the fatigued group on the run-in to Nice as Lipowitz, Michael Storer (Tudor), and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) focussed on Arensman.
So with Sheffield soloing to his first WorldTour victory, Jorgenson pursued half a minute behind in the yellow jersey, securing an American one-two on the stage and back-to-back overall Paris-Nice victories.
“It was awesome seeing [Sheffield] just in front of me,” Jorgenson said at the finish. “I was really trying to catch him, but I couldn’t get him. I’m happy to see him win. He deserves this stage.”
Big boys are scaring the climbers
Neither Paris-Nice nor Tirreno-Adriatico have any of the insane climbing stages that we’ll witness later in the season, but neither should the efforts of some of the peloton’s bigger men be underestimated, especially given the company they kept.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) have both exceeded expectations this week, not only excelling on their own terrain – Pedersen winning Paris-Nice stage 6 in the crosswinds and Ganna claiming the opening time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico – but out-performing some of the best climbers in the peloton too, including past Grand Tour winners like Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) in Ganna’s case. The Italian even managed to finish second overall.
They’ll both now return to one-day racing, with their first stop being Milan-San Remo; they’ve just put targets on their backs.
Milan and Merlier dominate sprints
Speaking of big Italian men, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) proved for a fourth and fifth time this season that he’s pretty bloody quick, and is positioning himself strongly as one of the fastest in the peloton.
Granted, it’s not like the all stars showed up to Tirreno-Adriatico, but with Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), Sam Bennett (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale), and up-and-comer Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) also on the startlist, it wasn’t exactly easy.
A similar story was written at Paris-Nice where Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) made light work of the flat finishes, though in his case, the pure sprinting field was lacking somewhat, with his main rivals included Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility), Emilien Jeannière (Total Energies), Arnaud Démare (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), and Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
With Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) still to be thrown into the mix, and names like Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic PostNL) and Sam Bennett apparently fading, it’s these three who are shaping up to be the sprinters of note in 2025.
Ayuso positions himself for leadership
Both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico are considered key form guides for the sport’s top riders – whether they like it or not – after the early-season flurry of minor events are out of the way, and with the first Grand Tour looming on the horizon. Of course, it’s far too early to gauge anything much about Tour de France prospects at this early stage, but for those heading to the Giro d’Italia, anything other than a good performance will tell them something about what’s to come, and how much work they need to do.
One of the question marks before Tirreno-Adriatico was the balance of power at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, specifically the positions of Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates. By the end of the race, it was pretty damn clear who was on top, and while Ayuso was aided by his far superior stage 1 performance – Yates finished 40th to Ayuso’s 2nd – the Spaniard also just seemed significantly more sprightly from one day to the next.
Both will be heading to the Giro and Ayuso looks good for number one spot.
With the usual anything-can-happen caveats, the anonymous performance of Adam is exacerbated by the similarly quiet race of twin brother Simon, whose Visma-Lease a Bike came away from the race they’ve won overall the past two seasons with only Olav Kooij’s stage 4 win.
If it weren't for their positions overall, the fact that the Yates twins were separated by just one second at the end of Tirreno-Adriatico would be worth celebrating, but instead, it’s a bad sign for either’s prospects at the upcoming Giro where the potential for a great Yates showdown is on shaky ground.
Cold shower for GC veterans
The Yates twins weren’t the only GC veterans to struggle this past week. Most notably, perhaps, was Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) who headed to Tirreno-Adriatico days after confirming that he’s going all in to win a second pink jersey at the Italian grand tour six years after his first.
After being unable to contest Strade Bianche – part of the course features in the finale of the Giro’s stage 9 – Carapaz hoped to pick up good results in the week-long Italian WorldTour race but it was one to forget for the Ecuadorian. His best finish of the week was on stage 4 won by Olav Kooij, while on the Queen Stage, he came home 26th, almost 90 seconds after Ayuso and 39 seconds after Filippo Ganna.
There was a good spread of thirty-somethings in the lower half of the top 10, including Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), both heading to the Giro, but the younger riders continue to shine. Just as they have at Paris-Nice where Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ) was the first over-thirty in 13th, one ahead of 29-year-old Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla) who finished a disappointing 8 minutes 51 seconds down – grey jersey competition anyone?
As for Movistar, which seems more inclined to lean towards tradition and elder statesmen, it's anyone's guess what their intentions are – but with Nairo Quintana, Einer Rubio, and Pelayo Sanchez all having a miserable time at Tirreno-Adriatico, the drawing board may take considerable interrogation in the coming weeks.
ProTeams have fun on the big stage
Tom Pidcock was always going to draw a great deal of attention at Tirreno-Adriatico, his WorldTour debut as a GC leader of Q36.5 Pro Cycling, and he earned it. While he wasn’t able to contest the podium after facing his Achilles heel in the form of the stage 1 time trial, he finished strongly everywhere else it mattered, and especially on the Queen Stage where only Ayuso finished ahead of him, with Jai Hindley succumbing to the Brit’s superior sprint to the line.
Q36.5 wasn’t the only ProTeam to enjoy success on the WorldTour stage this week with a resurgent Michael Storer (Tudor) climbing away from his breakaway companions to take stage 7 victory at Paris-Nice, and Frederik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) refusing to give in at Tirreno-Adriatico as the bunch fell victim to group 2 syndrome behind him on stage 5.
From here, the men’s peloton goes a little quiet for a week until Milan-San Remo and the resumption of the Spring Classics. But stage racing follows fast on its heels with possible redemption to be had at the Volta a Catalunya. Don’t look away.
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