In his third attempt, Jonas Vingegaard won Paris-Nice on Sunday. He adds the Race to the Sun to his two Tour de France yellow jerseys, his Vuelta a Espana title and overall wins at Tirreno-Adriatico, Itzulia Basque Country and the Critérium du Dauphiné. Vingegaard took two stages on his way to the victory, and Lenny Martinez barely edged the Dane out of his third on Sunday. By coming 14th in the Race to the Sun, Canada’s Nickolas Zukowsky (Pinarello-Q36.5) achieved his career-best WorldTour stage race GC.

Stage 4 saw Zukowsky rise 67 spots on GC in brutal conditions. Photo: Getty Images/Pinarello-Q36.5

Preliminaries

With Jonas Vingegaard leading second-place Dani Martinez by 3:22 and Martinez on top of Georg Steinhauser by 2:28, there seemed like little chance of the first two spots shifting. However, Kévin Vauquelin, who had a bad day on the stage that Juan Ayuso crashed out, was only 19 seconds off the podium.

The Course

The final day around Nice contained three Cat. 1 climbs, the most prominent Col de la Porte in the first half. Côte de Chateauneuf-Villevieille was plopped in the middle. The final Cat. 1 was the shortest and steepest: Côte du Linguador, 3.3 km of 8.2 percent, cresting 19 km from the finish.

Assume they’ve reached the sun. Image by La FlammeRouge.

Zukowsky’s compatriot Guillaume Boivin did not start the final stage.

Vingegaard was leading the mountains classification but only by eight points over Casper Pedersen and 12 over Mathis Le Berre. Would these two aspirants join the last breakaway of the 84th edition? Five riders dashed away but Pedersen and Le Berre weren’t aboard. However, this quintet didn’t make it to Col de la Porte, whose slopes elicited plenty of slicing and dicing before Valentin Paret-Peintre tipped over solo.

Paret-Peintre carried on solo towards Côte de Chateauneuf-Villevieille, Marc Soler his closest pursuer.

Soler is a dogged pursuer.

Côte de Chateauneuf-Villevieille was a big problem for Dani Martinez, who bumped into a teammate and hit the ditch hard. The Colombian chased behind Vingegaard, Vauquelin and Steinhauser. Could he hang on to the podium? It was all Red Bull hands to the pump. Demon descender Paret-Peintre chipped away at Vingegaard’s KOM lead but he was running out of mountains.

Paret-Peintre was lassoed with 24 km to go. At that point, Martinez and company trailed a minute. On the final climb of the 84th edition, Côte du Linguador, Vingegaard attacked, Lenny Martinez joining in.

Vingegaard and Lenny Martinez on the attack.

Steinhauser and Vauquelin were in the closest chase group. Lenny Martinez was on a romp, but Dani Martinez still had to toil to ensure his final podium. French Martinez led out the sprint and barely held off the Dane. Colombian Martinez fought through the pain to hold his runner-up spot.

It’s the third consecutive season that a Visma rider has won Paris-Nice. Vingegaard’s next race is the Volta a Catalunya, March 23-29.

2026 Paris-Nice, Stage 8
1) Lenny Martinez (France/Bahrain-Victorious) 3:06:42
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) s.t.
3) Harold Tejeda (Colombia/XDS-Astana) +0:10
33) Nickolas Zukowsky (Canada/Pinarello-Q36.5)

2026 Paris-Nice Final GC
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) 25:25:11
2) Dani Martinez (Colombia/Red Bull) +4:23
3) Georg Steinhauser (Germany/EF Education-Easypost) +6:07
4) Kévin Vauquelin (France/Ineos) +6:24
14) Nickolas Zukowsky (Canada/Pinarello-Q36.5) +28:29