A team time trial was on the programme for the third day of Paris-Nice 2024. 26.9 kilometres around Auxerre. Like last year, the competition was held in a new format. The time for the team, i.e. for the daily classification, stopped after the first rider of each team. For the overall classification, each rider was timed individually.
Paris-Nice 2024: Nils Politt and Co. celebrate victory in the team time trial
The fastest team was UAE Team Emirates, to which Nils Politt also belongs. However, the man from Cologne had already dropped out long before the finish after completing his work. His team-mates Brandon McNulty, Finn Fisher-Black, Joao Almeida and Jay Vine crossed the finish line together after 31:23 minutes. McNulty thus takes the lead in the overall standings.
Rain set in towards the end of the team time trial, which meant that the teams that started late had worse conditions than the teams - such as UAE Team Emirates - that were riding in the dry. Soudal - Quick Step, for example, was on course for victory for a long time, but lost a lot of time in the technical final and finished well behind.
Paris-Nice 2024 - Results: Stage 3 - the top 10
- UAE Team Emirates 31:23
- Team Jayco-AlUla +0:15
- EF Education EasyPost +0:20
- Soudal - Quick Step +0:22
- Ineos Grenadiers +0:22
- Visma | Lease a Bike +0:38
- Astana Qazaqstan Team +0:39
- Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale +0:39
- Cofidis +0:39
- Bahrain-Victorious +0:42
The current standings in the overall standings
- Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) 8:48:53
- Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates) +0:00
- Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +0:00
- Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) +0:00
- Michael Matthews (Team Jayco-AlUla) +0:15
- Chris Harper (Team Jayco-AlUla) +0:15
- Luke Plapp (Team Jayco-AlUla) +0:15
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step) +0:18
- Owain Doull (EF Education EasyPost) +0:20
- Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) +0:20
How the 3rd stage of Paris-Nice 2024 went
Astana Qazaqstan Team set the first serious benchmark time with 32:02. Soon, however, UAE Team Emirates roared past with 31:23. Nils Politt had acted as the locomotive in the first phase of the race and broke away around 20 kilometres before the finish. The team's strategy worked. Four riders reached the finish together - with a time that no-one was to beat.
Some teams on the road in the rain
However, it would have been close again at least if the teams that started late hadn't been hit by a downpour. Soudal - Quick Step was about to break the record of UAE Team Emirates. The Belgians around Remco Evenepoel still had a 17-second lead at the 2nd intermediate time, in the last wet section they lost a lot of time to UAE Team Emirates and were 22 seconds behind Joao Almeida's squad at the finish. Especially on the twisty last two kilometres, the teams that started late were not able to take the corners as quickly as the teams that were racing in the dry due to the slippery road surface.
Bora-Hansgrohe & Primoz Roglic lose time at Paris-Nice 2024
Bora-Hansgrohe with newcomer Primoz Roglic was also plagued by the wet road conditions. At the intermediate time at kilometre 14.1, the team from Raubling was only four seconds behind Soudal - Quick Step. In the final classification, Roglic conceded 54 seconds to Joao Almeida.
