A daring late attack over the top of the final climb of stage 6 of Paris-Nice has netted 28-year-old Colombian Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana) his first WorldTour victory and the second win of his pro career.
Searing down the broad descent off the cat. 2 Côte de Saignon and through the narrow streets of the finish town of Apt, Tejada finished just a handful of seconds ahead of a small group led by Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) and Lewis Askey (NSN).
After the remnants of a day-long break of four were reeled in thanks to Lidl-Trek's chase and a brief skirmish between some of the favourites, Tejada made the most of the GC riders' mutual control to go clear for the victory.
On the first non-GC day of Paris-Nice since Monday's sprint into Montargis, leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) maintained his overall safely for a third straight day, and the Danish star will continue at the head of affairs as the race reaches its final crunch weekend.
"I've very grateful to my teammates because I had a lot of problems with my bike," Tejada said about the mechanical just before the final climb which led to a frantic chase to get back on.
"But [Aleksandr] Vinokourov" – Astana team manager and former Paris-Nice winner – "advised me to be ready to jump over the top of the climb and on the downhill that followed and that's exactly what I did."
"It's my first WorldTour win and it's taken a lot of patience and perseverance to get here. At the end of the day when I crossed the line, I even had time to give a proper victory salute and thank everybody in the team over the race radio, too."
How it unfolded
After news emerged that GC contender Oscar Onley (Ineos Grenadiers) and three other riders were the latest to add their names to the abandons list in this year's race, a remorselessly shrinking Paris-Nice peloton began the hilly run to Apt in dry, cool weather.
There were no shortage of candidates for a break, so many in fact, that for 40 fast and furious kilometres all the efforts to go clear cancelled each other out. It was only when Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), Luxembourg's current national champion Arthur Kluckers (Tudor), Steff Cras (Soudal-QuickStep) and UAE Team Emirates-XRG racer Igor Arrieta went clear that things finally began to settle down again.
With none of them at less than 35 minutes down overall on GC, Visma-Lease a Bike had no issue whatsoever with the quartet drawing clear, and for the next few hours, the race trundled on uneventfully as far as the Col de l’Aire Deï Masco (7.2 km at 4.3%), 33 kilometres from the line.
On the climb itself, Lidl-Trek's Søren Kragh Andersen ripped out of the peloton, reducing the breakaway quartet's advantage to 31 seconds at the summit. The Danish national champion was clearly a man on a mission, sweeping up a fading Cras on the descent and storming on with the Belgian in his wake.
While Kragh Andersen and Cras were then unable to maintain their effort to keep the bunch at bay on the long, largely flat approach to the final key climb of the day, Tarling's time trialling skills helped maintain the leading trio's scant advantage. The three made no effort to contest the intermediate sprint on a short unclassified ascent through the stone-flagged, hilltop village of Saint-Martin-de-Castillon, either, focussing hard instead on their effort to stay clear.
The sight of the race organisation's lead car powering past as the gap shrank again was hardly a morale booster for the break, though, and the way the bunch split slightly under Lidl-Trek's pressure even before the final ascent spoke volumes about the speed of the chase, too. At the foot of the four-kilometre cat. 2 Côte de Saignon, Arrieta and Tarling forged on despite Kluckers fading early, but Lidl-Trek's Lennard Kämna and Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike) drove so hard it proved fatal for the break in any case.
As soon the two leaders were caught, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), fifth overall, opened up a final round of hostilities, with Vingegaard and Kévin Vauquelin (Ineos Grenadiers) quickly following the Bahrain-Victorious racer as he tried to go clear. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep) tested his luck late in the hills for a second day running, too, but finally it was Tejada who managed to escape the clutches of the two-dozen strong lead group of favourites.
Once unleashed and with the prospect of a first WorldTour win to spur him on, Tejada proved unstoppable, blasting down the short stretch of downhill then picking his way through the very technical finale of slightly rising, narrow streets with his handful of seconds' advantage intact. Cofidis did their utmost to regain contact, but their efforts on the finish proved in vain, and Godon then snapped up the first of the stage podium spots behind Tejada, still six seconds ahead at the line.
Whilst Tejada edged his way into the top ten overall thanks to clinching XDS-Astana's second stage victory in this year's Paris-Nice, the race now moves into its crunch phase over the weekend, starting with the interminable ascent – weather permitting – to the Auron ski station. However, given Vingegaard's colossal overall advantage in a race often decided by less than 10 seconds, his rivals will have to plan the most audacious of moves to try and dislodge him from the top spot – unlikely but far from unprecedented in a race always as stubbornly unpredictable as Paris-Nice.
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