Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) won a close sprint against Mads Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) in stage 1 of Paris-Nice. Rounding out the podium in third was Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ).
Pedersen was the first to open up his sprint and looked like he would take the stage, but Kooij had enough in the final meters to nip him at the line.
The race started with the trio Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), Stefan Bissegger, and Jonas Rutsch (both EF Education-EasyPost) going off the front in search of KOM points. At one point their gap grew to 3 minutes, but the peloton was able to keep them in check and they were eventually swallowed up with 39 kilometers remaining. Their efforts, however, were not in vain and Rutsch was able to score enough KOM points to prevail over Burgaudeau by one point and be awarded the KOM jersey at the end of the day.
With 10km to go Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) attacked and held a lead of 18 seconds at one point, but was eventually caught by the peloton with less than 2km to go.
Thereafter, the lead out trains began to organize with Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike fighting for position in the final kilometer. Pedersen started his sprint a bit too early and was forced to lead out the sprint through the final corner with Kooij on his wheel. Pedersen tried to hold off Kooij, but was nipped right at the line by half a wheel.
And what of the GC contenders? Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) grabbed some bonus points in an intermediate sprint (4 bonus seconds), but for the most part, he and Primoz Roglic (BORA-hansgrohe) tucked themselves quietly away in the peloton for the duration of the stage.
Stage 1 Results
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/paris-nice/2024/stage-1
Stage 1 GC Standings
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/paris-nice/2024/stage-1-gc
