Race leader Jonas Vingegaard finishes over a minute behind Dorion Godon after a cluster of riders crash in finale.
Dorian Godon celebrates his win on the seventh stage of Paris-Nice cycling race (Photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP)
Updated March 14, 2026 09:30AM
It was meant to be the queen stage of Paris-Nice but victory by Dorian Godon ahead of Biniam Girmay underlined just how differently things turned out.
The stage was shortened on Friday due to snowfall, cutting the course to 120.3km instead of 138. It was due to finish at the intermediate sprint point in Isola but, prior to the stage start, it was cut again to just 47km.
That kept the sprinters in the frame and after a couple of unsuccessful solo breakaways, the fastmen of bunch duked it out in freezing conditions at Isola.
Godon got a big leadout from teammate Sam Watson (Ineos Grenadiers), hitting the line just ahead of Girmay (NSN Cycling Team) and Cees Bol (Decathlon CMA CGM Team).
American stage 1 winner Luke Lamperti (EF Education EasyPost) was fifth, losing the green jersey to Godon, while overnight race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike) was delayed after several riders fell with approximately 2km to go and finished 1:16 back.
It was initially unclear if the Dane had himself crashed, but the application of the UCI’s 3km rule saw him given the same time as the winner. He consequently retains his yellow jersey heading into Sunday’s final stage.
“I am fine. I backed off at the right moment and made sure that I was not in that crash,” he confirmed afterwards. “For me personally I am okay, and I hope everybody else who crashed is okay.”
The double Tour de France winner is a whopping 3:22 ahead of Dani Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and 4:34 ahead of Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), confirming superb early season form in his first outing of the year.
The final stage of the race is—weather permitting—due to run 129.2km and cross three category one climbs.
“Tomorrow is a new day,” Vingegaard said. “Hopefully we have a bit nicer weather but we will see. I just hope that I can keep the jersey now after tomorrow as well.”
‘There were some big crashes’
Jonas Vingegaard wore yellow on Saturday’s seventh stage (Photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP)
Freezing conditions and the threat of crashes saw the race organizers of Paris-Nice slash the route distance to just 47km on Saturday morning. However crashes and flat tires meant that the actual rolling start was just 43km out, with Tim Marsman accelerating clear 34km from the finish.
The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider built a lead of just over half a minute but was finally caught 9.3km from the end. Nicolas Vinokourov (XDS Astana Team) leaped clear 2.3km later but was reeled in just over 2km after that.
Victor Campenaerts did a long stint at the front to help Vingegaard and, in doing so, avoided a big crash with 2km to go which took down several riders and delayed many more, his leader included.
Friday’s stage winner Harold Tejada (XDS Astana Team) fell heavily but his top 10th place overall was kept safe by the decision to apply the 3km rule.
The sprinters pushed onwards and long sprint by Goudon saw the Frenchman hold off Girmay. Vingegaard trailed in over a minute back but retained his lead.
He suggested afterwards that things should have been shortened even further.
“I think it is very important to do a stage. It is one of the biggest races in the world,” he said. “Obviously they want to have a stage. I still think that maybe there could have been something different, we could have stopped a bit earlier because now in the end it might be a bit slippery, it seems.
“There were some big crashes. If we had stopped 10k earlier and made a finish line there, it wouldn’t have been any problem at all.”
Staying upright was the most important thing, given the crash which saw him pull out last year. The Giro d’Italia is his first big goal of the year and now, with less than two months to go, he seems well on track for a big performance.