Visma-Lease a Bike's Paris-Nice squad took a hit when Jonas Vingegaard pulled out of the race after hurting his hand in a crash on stage 5, but the Dutch squad was not interested in sulking. Instead, they redoubled their efforts to back defending champ and overall leader Matteo Jorgenson, turning a two-pronged instrument into a spear on stage 6 without missing a beat.
Despite losing their Tour de France-winning superstar, who had been sitting second overall behind Jorgenson after stage 5, the team went to work on Friday to turn what looked like a sprint stage into GC day, forcing the pack to split into echelons amid windy conditions in the South of France.
Perhaps it should not have come as a surprise that Visma would look to leverage wind and rain to pad the lead of a GC rider who can also win Classics like Dwars door Vlaanderen. Whatever the case, it worked. When all was said and done, Jorgenson had put a chunk of time into stage 4 winner João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and a very, very big chunk of time into stage 5 winner Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious).
Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) were among the few GC-oriented riders to also find themselves on the right side of Friday's splits, and are thus now the only riders within two minutes of Jorgenson's lead. In other words, Visma lost the defending champion of the Tour de France on Friday morning but went into Friday evening looking a lot more likely to win Paris-Nice than when the day began.
"I am incredibly proud of my team. This is a strong show of resilience, especially after the news of Jonas dropping out this morning," said sports director Grischa Niermann. "With a plan and good motivation you can do a lot, as today proved."
As Jorgenson explained, the stage tactics had been drawn up in advance, with the backside of the Côte des Baux-de-Provence chosen as the battleground where Visma would strike.
“We made a plan this morning and executed it to perfection," Jorgenson said. "On the bus, we looked at the course and knew that it could get quite windy in the Côte des Baux-de-Provence section. That happened and when we looked back we saw gaps forming. That was the moment we continued riding as hard as we could towards the finish."
With the likes of Victor Campenaerts putting the hammer down, a Visma-led front group put most of the Paris-Nice field into the rearview mirror. After the initial splits, the collective firepower of Visma's big engines and others in the group – the Ineos Grenadiers also made a huge contribution – proved too great for the chasers. Despite being bigger than the lead group, the first chasing group on the road arrived nearly two minutes behind stage 6 winner Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek).
As such, Jorgenson will head into this weekend's mountain stages with far less to worry about from Almeida, who started the day in fourth, while Martinez, who started in fifth, is now effectively out of GC contention entirely.
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