Paris-Nice 2024: Cold starters Roglic and Evenepoel - these are the favourites

Paris-Nice 2024: The most important facts in brief

• Date: 3-10 March, 8 stages
• Distance~ 1200 kilometres
• StartLes Mureaux (Paris), GoalNice
• ProfileThree mountain stages, including two mountain finishes, three hilly stages, one team time trial, one flat stage
• UCI category: World Tour
• Premiere: 1933, 82nd edition
• All information about the route and TV broadcast

In 2023, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) won with a lead of just under a minute over David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and a minute and a half over Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma). Only the Frenchman from last year's podium is back at the start. But that doesn't mean he'll be there again. The list of riders with ambitions going into the race is long.

The TOUR favourites by stars*

* Ion Izagirre, Alexey Lutsenko, Ilan Van Wilder, Felix Gall, Rigoberto Uran

** Aleksandr Vlasov, Matteo Jorgenson, Brandon McNulty, Carlos Rodriguez

*** David Gaudu, Mattias Skjelmose, Pello Bilbao

**** Remco Evenepoel, Joao Almeida

***** Primoz Roglic

* The more stars a driver receives, the stronger he is rated

All eyes on Primoz Roglic at Paris-Nice 2024

He is the rider on whom all the attention will be focused, even Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step), favourite of the masses, should have a little more breathing space than usual in this special situation. Because Primoz Roglic celebrates his premiere for Bora-Hansgrohe. After his time alongside Tour winner Vingegaard, he will tackle the 2024 Tour of France as his rival and turn the duel for yellow between the Dane and Pogacar into a three-way battle. Accordingly, the whole world is eagerly awaiting the 34-year-old Slovenian's first test of form.

>> Roglic, Evenepoel and Co.: These are the stars' race calendars

He proved last year that he doesn't need kilometres of racing to warm up when he won his first race at Tirreno-Adriatico. The season before that, he won Paris-Nice, albeit with two small one-day races in his legs. But Roglic has enough experience to be successful straight out of training. This year, a good team time trial is also required for this. With Aleksandr Vlasov, who will be in with a chance of a front place himself, Matteo Sobrero, Bob Jungels, Nico Denz, Marco Haller and Danny van Poppel, there is a good team at the start that may not be able to win this 27 kilometre long and undulating stage, but doesn't have to lose much time either.

Remco Evenepoel is the top challenger

Evenepoel also has such a team at its disposal. With Ilan van Wilder, who roughly fulfils the role of Vlasov at Bora, Mattia Cattaneo and Yves Lampaert, Soudal has plenty of class in the battle against the clock alongside the reigning time trial world champion Evenepoel. The 24-year-old himself has already proven his form in impressive style. Evenepoel first delivered a 55-kilometre solo to win the Figueira Classcic (1.Pro), only to win the Tour of the Algarve (2.Pro) just a few days later - with a decisive victory in the time trial.

Keyword Portugal: Joao Almeida, who should lead the strong UAE Team Emirates, will also go into the tour with high hopes. After Brandon McNulty and Jay Vine started well at the UAE Tour (2nd UWT), but then slowed down considerably and finished outside the top 20 in the overall standings, the Portuguese rider should get his chance. Marc Soler, Finn Fisher-Black and Felix Großschartner are three other strong climbers in the line-up, joined by Nils Politt. However, Almeida is still without a result this season and will not be competing as a professional for the first time in his career until March, making him a bit of an unknown quantity among the favourites.

The row behind them: Skjelmose, Gaudu and Bilbao aim for top placings

The situation was different for Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious). The Spaniard finished the UAE Tour in third place after a decent performance. Mattias Skjelmose, who will take on the captain's role at Lidl-Trek, has so far only competed in two one-day races in France, where he finished in the top 5. Last year's third-placed Gaudu has also already clocked up a few race kilometres, but used them more for rolling in than for results. While he and Skjelmose are the sole captains, Jack Haig or Santiago Buitrago could also step in at Bahrain-Victorious if Bilbao has a bad day.

Gall, Rodriguez and Co. as candidates for a single-digit result at Paris-Nice

At the age of 37, Rigoberto Uran (EF Education Easy-Post) will be competing in Paris-Nice for only the fourth time. The Colombian, although no longer at full fitness, is the American team's best chance of a top 10 result. However, Uran could also be aiming for a stage win, similar to Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) or Oscar Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), which would also put a top place in the overall standings within reach.