Paris-Nice: Jonas Vingegaard secures GC title as Lenny Martinez wins stage 8

The pair worked well to hold off the chasing group behind and reach the finish in Nice together, but with no gifts in this sport, they began to look at each other with Vingegaard sitting on the Frenchman’s wheel, ready to sprint.

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With enough time to do so as they approached the new finish line beside the Allianz Riviera stadium, home to football club OGC Nice, Martinez kept his cool before launching an almighty 300-metre sprint to hold off Vingegaard, who came out of his wheel but was unable to pip him to the line.

Despite going down hard in a clumsy crash caused by teammate Laurence Pithie, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe did well to put out a fire and protect Dani Martínez’s second place overall, with Aleksandr Vlasov and Pithie working hard in the chase to save him.

Kévin Vauquelin got his Ineos Grenadiers teammates to take over at times on the front, but he was unable to really put pressure on Georg Steinhauser, who actually proved the stronger of the two on the key Linguador climb, ending in the German confirming a well-earned podium finish.

More to come…