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Paris-Nice is the first important stage race of the road cycling season. It is known as a long-distance race because it has always linked the centre of the country with the Mediterranean coast. As it starts at the beginning of March in the north of France, which is often still grey in late winter, and leads to the sea, where it is often already spring, the long-distance race is also known as the "race to the sun".
Paris-Nîce" was held for the first time in 1933 and is now one of the races organised by the Tour de France organiser ASO. Similar to the Tour de France, the leaders in the overall classification, the mountain classification and the points classification (sprint) are awarded the yellow jersey, the dotted jersey and the green jersey. The record winner to date is the Irishman Sean Kelly, who won the race seven times between 1982 and 1988. The most stage wins (20) go to Eddy Merckx, who also won the overall classification three times.
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The most successful German participant is Maximilian Schachmann, who won Paris-Nice in 2020 and 2021. The professional from Team Soudal-Quick Step experienced a major setback a few days ago on the final stage of the Tour of the Algarve. Scary momentwhen, together with Julian Alaphilippe in the lead, he slipped in a downhill section and crashed into the crash barrier. However, the 32-year-old Berlin survived the crash well. However, he will not be able to repeat his victory at Paris-Nice this year, as he is not part of his team's four-man squad, which is led by Jasper Stuyven.
Favourites for the overall victory
João Almeida (UAE-Team Emirates), last year's winner of the Tour of the Basque Country, Tour de Suisse and Tour de Romandie and runner-up in the Vuelta a España, is certainly one of the favourites for overall victory. Last year's Vuelta winner and Tour runner-up, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), will be back after a somewhat bumpy start to the season will endeavour to bring consistency to his further build-up of form.
Other candidates for top places in the overall classification include Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), who won the parallel Tirreno-Adriatico stage race in Italy last year and proved his excellent form a few days ago as the winner of the Tour of the Algarve. It will be interesting to see how Oscar Onley (Ineos Grenadiers), who finished fourth in last year's Tour de France, organises his debut at Paris-Nice.
A battle of the tour specialists
Florian Lipowitz, to whom he was narrowly defeated in the battle for third place in last year's Tour de France, will not be competing in this year's Paris-Nice. As second overall in last year's "Ride to the Sun", he put down a clear marker on his way to the Tour de France; this year, however, he will not be racing again until the Tour of Catalonia at the end of March.
The prominence of the winners from previous years and the high-calibre starting field for this year's event are already clear to see: Traditionally, Paris-Nice is the race in which the Tour specialists, who also want to achieve success in the Tour de France, make their first mark. The race takes this into account by usually including an individual time trial as well as demanding mountain stages or day sections that end with a mountain finish.
The requirements of the route
At this year's event, for example, this is the third stage, which is held as an individual time trial over 23.5 kilometres on a slightly undulating course in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. The seventh stage, covering 138 kilometres, starts in Nice at sea level and leads almost exclusively uphill from the halfway point to the finish in Auron, which lies at an altitude of 1600 metres on a plateau in the Maritime Alps near St. Etienne. Finally, the eighth stage features three climbs - the Col de la Porte, the Côte de Châteeauneuf-Villevielle and the Côte du Linguador - which the organisers classify as 1st category due to their length and gradient, even if the 1000 metre mark is only just surpassed by the Col de la Porte.
You can also bring the original Paris-Nice feeling home with you: to coincide with the start in Achères, there are Bobshop the exclusive Paris-Nice collection from Santini. With this equipment, you are ideally equipped for your own "journey to the sun".
Stage overview of the 84th Paris-Nice Tour
1st stage: 8 March, Achères - Carrières-sous-Poissy, 170.9 km | Eurosport: 3.20 - 5.20 pm
2nd stage: 9 March, Épône - Montargis, 187 km | Eurosport: 15.10 - 17.15
3rd stage: 10 March, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire - Pouilly-sur-Loire, 23.5 km | Eurosport: 15.10 - 17.15
4th stage: 11 March, Bourges - Uchon, 195 km | Eurosport: not yet specified
Stage 5: 12 March, Cormoranche-sur-Saône - Colombier-le-Vieux, 206.3 km | Eurosport: not yet specified
Stage 6: 13 March, Barbentane - Apt, 179.3 km | Eurosport: not yet specified
7th stage: 14 March, Nice - Auron, 138.7 km | Eurosport: not yet specified
8th stage: 15 March, Nice - Nice, 129.2 km | Eurosport: not yet specified
Preliminary start list
Decathlon CMA CGM
Daan Hoole
Cees Bol
Aurélien Paret-Peintre
Stefan Bissegger
Movistar
Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda
Michel Hessmann
Iván Romeo
Cian Uijtdebroeks
UAE Team Emirates - XRG
Marc Soler
Pavel Sivakov
Joao Almeida
Igor Arrieta
Bahrain - Victorious
Phil Bauhaus
Damiano Caruso
Lenny Martinez
Alpecin-Premier Tech
Jensen Plowwright
Aaron Dockx
Maurice Ballerstedt
Lotto Intermarché
Luca van Boven
Vito Braet
Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe
Nico Denz
Daniel Felipe Martínez
Laurence Pithie
Aleksandr Vlasov
Mick van Dijke
Jayco AlUla
Luke Durbridge
Michael Matthews
Jelte Krijnsen
Visma | Lease a Bike
Edoardo Affini
Jonas Vingegaard
Bruno Armirail
Victor Campenaerts
Axel Zingle
Groupama - FDJ United
Johan Jacobs
Rémi Cavagna
Ewen Costiou
David Gaudu
Lidl - Trek
Tom Skujinš
Mathias Vacek
Lennard Kämna
Søren Kragh Andersen
Mattias Skjelmose
Juan Ayuso
EF Education - EasyPost
James Shaw
Luke Lamperti
Marijn van den Berg
Alex Baudin
Kasper Asgreen
Michael Valgren
Vincenzo Albanese
Cofidis
Louis Rouland
Milan Fretin
Alex Kirsch
Ion Izagirre
Benjamin Thomas
Bryan Coquard
Ineos Grenadiers
Oscar Onley
Carlos Rodríguez
Dorian Godon
Kévin Vauquelin
NSN Cycling Team
Biniam Girmay
Riley Sheehan
Lewis Askey
Soudal Quick-Step
Alberto Dainese
Jasper Stuyven
Valentin Paret-Peintre
Yves Lampaert
Picnic PostNL
Casper van Uden
Max Poole
Uno-X Mobility
Rasmus Tiller
Andreas Leknessund
Pinarello Q36.5
Fabio Christe
David de la Cruz
Eddie Dunbar
TotalEnergies
Anthony Turgis
Emilien Jeannière
Joris Delbove
XDS Astana
Nicolas Vinokourov
Mike Teunissen
Harold Tejeda
Sergio Higuita
Tudor
Rick Pluimers
Mathys Rondel
Matteo Trentin
Maikel Zijlaard
Thomas Musch
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