Paris-Nice: Tim Merlier goes two-for-two with late acceleration for stage 2 victory

Belgian fastman Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) made it two out of two at Paris-Nice on Monday because the race chief adopted his victory on stage 1 with one other bunch dash win on Monday.

At the top of a quick, flat run throughout the plains west of Paris, Merlier was completely positioned in fourth spot behind Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) because the pack blasted up the marginally rising ending straight in Belleville.

With 100 metres to go, Merlier was already a motorbike size forward of his rivals and he may even sluggish barely earlier than the road to savour his win forward of Emilién Jeannière (TotalEnergies) and Hugo Page (Intermarché-Wanty).

Barring Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) snatching a two-second time bonus on the stage’s one intermediate dash, the GC contenders principally focused on saving as a lot vitality as attainable previous to Tuesday’s crunch group time trial stage.

Meanwhile some sizable crashes in direction of the again of the bunch noticed a number of riders abandon, together with Australian nationwide champion Luke Durbridge (Jayco-AIUIa).

More to come back…

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