Team Emirates rider Mcnulty takes lead at Paris-nice race
PARIS: American Brandon Mcnulty took the overall lead of cycling’s Paris-nice in the scenic low Alps on Friday as his escape partner Matias Skjelmose won hilly stage six.
A youthful trio of Team UAE’S Mcnulty, another American Mateo Jorgenson of Visma and Lidl-trek’s Skjelmose, escaped from the elite riders and worked hard together to achieve a surprise victory.
“That was a really hard final 50km, and I never expected to take the yellow jersey,” said Mcnulty. “But it was like we were teammates.”
Pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel led the chasing group across the line 52sec later and remains in fith.
Known as the ‘Race to the Sun’, as it leaves the cooler north towards the Riviera town of Nice, 139 riders embarked from Sisteron for the 198km run over five hills of around 1000m altitude with around 30km of climbing.
Santiago Buitrago, second overall on Friday morning, lost all his chances of an overall win in a fall on a cold day with a wet road.
The winning trio atacked on the final hill but the action really heated up on the final downhill dash with the three escapees extending their lead racing to La Colle sur Loup.
Danish champion Skjelmose made his sprint from 400m out with Mcnulty edging his compatriot Jorgenson.
“I feel beter than when I won the Tour de Suisse last year and I think I’m in a good place right now,” said the Dane.
Overall leader Mcnulty faces two tough mountain stages over the weekend, but goes into it as the man to beat leading Jorgenson by 23sec.
Big guns Evenepoel and Egan Bernal are at 1min 03sec and 1min 14sec respectively.
The weather is set to take a turn for the worse for the penultimate stage on Saturday with snow forecast at the finish line in Auron.
Race organisers have shortened the stage to 104km and reduced its level of difficulty slightly, albeit retaining a final 15.3km climb with a 5.7% average gradient.
“It’s the right decision, it risked being too dangerous and too extreme,” commented Evenepoel, who said he “suffers in cold and wet conditions” but could benefit from the smoother profile of the climb.
Meanwhile, Jonas Vingegaard took the lead in the Tirreno-adriatico on Friday ater storming to victory in the fith stage with a bold atack on a key climb.
The Visma-lease A Bike rider finished the 144-kilometre stage one minute and 12 seconds ahead of the chasing pack led by Juan Ayuso and Jai Hindley to snatch the lead from Jonathan Milan. Italian Milan topped the general classification for one day ater sprinting to Thursday’s fourth stage, but Vingegaard now has a 54sec lead over UAE rider Ayuso.
“We always had the plan to give it a shot today and we did so,” said Vingegaard.
“The team rode amazingly and I’m really happy to take the win and pay the guys back.”
Double Tour de France winner Vingegaard went for victory 5km from the crucial San Giacomo summit and let his rivals for dead as he sped down the long descent.