Visma-Lease a Bike may have sat within the peloton on stage 6 of Paris-Nice on Friday and let the sprinters have their day, however as a substitute, the workforce took a really totally different tactic.
Following Jonas Vingegaard’s abandon, the workforce threw their weight behind race chief Matteo Jorgenson and jettisoned all however two of their closest rivals with a full-on echelon assault with round 60km to go.
Their effort was so robust that solely 16 riders ended up within the main group: all of Visma-Lease a Bike, all however one rider from Ineos Grenadiers, Mattias Skjelmose and stage winner Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Florian Lipowitz and Matteo Sobrero (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Max Schachmann (Soudal-Quickstep).
Jorgenson gained 1:54 on a gaggle with João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and eight:57 on the principle peloton with Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), who dropped out of the highest 10. Additionally, the American scored a six-second time bonus to convey his lead over Lipowitz to 44 seconds. Skjelmose climbed from sixth to 3rd general at 59 seconds.
“I’m impressed with the fellows right this moment and our dedication and simply following the plan that we made ourselves this morning,” Jorgenson mentioned.
“We appeared on the course on the bus and made the plan. On a day like right this moment, I knew we had the strongest workforce within the race for these sorts of circumstances, and it is good to take full benefit and make what was a really grim day, so far as climate circumstances, right into a constructive expertise, a minimum of results-wise.”
The workforce had been planning to attempt to get each Jorgenson and Vingegaard onto the ultimate podium in Nice, however after the Dane crashed and damage his hand on stage 5, the workforce may have taken a extra conservative method with main Lipowitz by 36 seconds however selected as a substitute to blow the race large open.
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“The plan was to take the descent of [the Côte de Baux-de-Provence] first, after which see if there was sufficient wind on the backside the place it was going to open up into crosswinds,” Jorgenson mentioned.
“The complete day we have been type of sheltered and we did not actually know if there was sufficient wind, however there was. And so I mentioned, ‘Victor [Campenaerts], let’s go’. I appeared again just a few instances and noticed some massive gaps, after which simply from there to the end it was about pedalling and attempting to push as exhausting as as all of us may. The boys simply did a tremendous job.”
Jorgenson is now a lot nearer to his dwelling roads in Nice, the place he’ll face a shortened, 109-kilometre summit end stage to Auron on Saturday earlier than the ultimate showdown in Nice on Sunday.
“It’s scenario,” Jorgenson mentioned, however would not let on concerning the technique for the remainder of the race. “I’ll must heat up now. Take a heat bathe, get some meals in me, after which [we will] attempt to deal with it head-on.”