Strong sprint gives Dylan Groenewegen the victory at second stage of Paris-Nice
Mar 06 2018 12:03 am CET
Photo of Dylan Groenewegen by LottoNL-Jumbo
A strong performance has given Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) the victory at the second stage of Paris-Nice. The Dutchman was stronger at the final sprint than riders like Elia Viviani and Andre Greipel.
The riders went through the 187.5-kilometre route of the second stage with better weather than the day before.
A group of six formed the breakaway of the day. Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida), Tiago Machado (Katusha-Alpecin), Olivier Naesen (AG2R), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Anthony Delaplace (Fortuneo) and Lars Boom (LottoNL-Jumbo), went ahead and soon built a gap of a minute with the peloton.
Some kilometres later, Boaro and Machado were the only survivors of the escape and continued on their own, managing to take an advantage of almost three minutes with the pack. The peloton rode peacefully and accelerated only in the last part of the stage, catching the front riders with four kilometres to go.
In the next kilometres, the sprint trains of teams like Astana, LottoNL-Jumbo, Lotto-Soudal, Sunweb, Bora-hansgrohe, Groupama-FDJ and Quick-Step Floors worked hard to set a good pace and secure a good place for their men.
The last curve disrupted the trains however and each sprinter had to fight on his own. Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) once again showed his good condition and launched a very strong sprint that his contenders couldn't match, as such taking his fifth victory of the season.
Quick-Step Floors' Elia Viviani was second and Lotto-Soudal's Andre Greipel was third. Phil Bauhaus (Sunweb) and Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) completed the top five of the day.
Demare keeps wearing the leader's jersey for another day.
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