Frenchman Dorian Godon delivered Ineos Grenadiers' Paris-Nice second stage win as out-sprinting his rivals after a drastically shortened stage.
It was Godon’s first win since joining the team this year, and Ineos Grenadiers also won the race's team time trial on stage three.
The British-registered squad led out the sprint and delivered Godon to victory over Biniam Girmay (NS) in second and Cees Bol (Decathlon CMA CGM) in third.
The stage had been shortened due to snow and rain falling at the original finish at the Auron ski resort. Instead, the stage finished in Isola-Village at the base of what was the final climb.
Then the morning of the stage it was cut further down from 120km to just 47km as the wind and rain battered the course.
That made the course, the fourth shortest ever Paris-Nice road stage, mostly uphill, albeit gently, all the way to the finish.
The lone break of the day was Tim Marsman (Alpecin-Premier Tech) who clipped off the front of the bunch after 10km.
His effort was always futile and after just over an hour of racing the bunch passed under the flamme rouge with Ineos Grenadiers at the front.
Godon was dropped off with a couple of 100m to go and never relinquished his spot at the front despite Girmay closing on him.
The stage had been shortened due to snow and rain falling at the original finish at the Auron ski resort. Instead, the stage finished in Isola-Village at the base of what was the final climb.
Then the morning of the stage it was cut further down from 120km to just 47km as the wind and rain battered the course.
That made the course, the fourth shortest ever Paris-Nice road stage, mostly uphill, albeit gently, all the way to the finish.
The lone break of the day was Tim Marsman (Alpecin-Premier Tech) who clipped off the front of the bunch after 10km.
His effort was always futile and after just over an hour of racing the bunch passed under the flamme rouge with Ineos Grenadiers at the front.
Godon was dropped off with a couple of 100m to go and never relinquished his spot at the front despite Girmay closing on him.
There were several crashes on the wet roads in the final 10km. Stage 6 winner Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) was among those that came down but he kept his place in the top 10 on GC due to only falling within the final three kilometres.
Yellow jersey wearer Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) came through unscathed and has to only survive one more stage to take home his first Paris-Nice title.
He told broadcasters at the finish: “Obviously they want to have a stage, but I think there could have been something different, maybe we could have stopped a bit earlier because in the end it was a bit slippery, there were some big crashes. If we had stopped 10km earlier there wouldn’t have been any problem at all.”
Asked how he was he added: “I’m fine, I backed off at the right moment… I hope everyone who crashed is ok.”
Result
Paris-Nice, Stage 7: Pont Louis Nucera > Isola (47km)
1. Dorian Godon (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers, in 1:01:48
2. Biniam Girmay (Eri) NSN Cycling Team
3. Cees Bol (ned) Decathlon CMA CGM
4. Laurence Pithie (NZl) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
5. Luke Lamperti (USA) EF Education-EasyPost
6. Mike Teunissen (Ned) ADS Astana
7. Jensen Plowright (Aus) Alpecin-Premier Tech
8. Jasper Stuyven (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step
9. Matteo Trentin (Ita) Tudor Pro Cycling
10. Samuel Watson (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers, all at same time
General classification
1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 22:18:38
2. Dani Martínez (Col) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +3:22
3. Georg Steinhauser (Ger) EF Education-EasyPost, +5:50
4. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers, +6:09
5. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +7:37
6. Marc Soler (Spa) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +8:15
7. Ion Izagirre (Esp) Cofidis, +9:02
8. Mathys Rondel (Fra) Tudor Pro Cycling, +10:06
9. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost, +10:16
10. Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), +11:27
