Sunday 10 March 2013 at 16h53

The last stage of Paris-Nice 2013 today was the individual time trial on the Col d'Eze, which made its comeback in the Paris-Nice race route at the occasion of the 70th edition of the Race to the sun last year.

The time trial was won by Richie Porte, even though he didn't need to win it anymore to take the overall win and thus become the first Australian winner of this race and take the second victory in a row for Team Sky.

The summary of the 7th stage: individual time trial Nice > Col d'Eze

151 riders started in this individual time trial, all the way up from the center of Nice to the top of the Col d'Eze 9.6 kilometers further.

Rick Flens (Blanco Pro Cycling Team) was the first rider to start and the Dutch rider set the first time on top at 22'35".

Several riders then got under this first reference time but we had to wait for Jérémy Roy (FDJ), more and more a time trial specialist but of course a bit less in his element on a climb like this one, to find a reference time which was to stay on top of the table for a while. The French rider indeed connected the start ramp in Nice with the top of the Col d'Eze in 20'59".

His time was the best time for about 50 minutes, before it got improved for 8 seconds by the neo-pro Mattia Cattaneo (Lampre-Merida). He didn't have the chance to see his name shown on top of the table for a long time however because Javier Moreno (Movistar), who left 10 minutes later, took off 4 more seconds of this reference time.

A bit over 10 minutes later, it was time for Jérôme Coppel (Cofidis solutions crédits) to improve the best time and set a new reference time at 20'33". Rapidly after him, Ion Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) followed by Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) did the same.

The Columbian climber Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) is however the first rider to go under 20 minutes with his time set at 19'43"47. This was no less than 35 seconds under Scarponi's time but still far froim the 19'12" by Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) last year.

Other good times which didn't however go under Quintana's time were those by Simon Spilak (Katusha) at 20'11", Tejay van Garderen at 20'08" and Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale) at 19'48". For the French rider this time was actually good enough to get on the podium of this Paris-Nice 2013!

The best young rider of this Paris-Nice, Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp), was however even faster than Quintana, finishing in 19'39", 4 seconds less than the Columbian rider.

Like last year with his team mate Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky), Richie Porte was even faster, faster than all the others. It was almost a carbon copy of last year with a time of 19'16" for the Australian rider, only 4 seconds more than Wiggins in 2012.

Even though we use to call Paris-Nice the Race to the sun, this year it was more "Race away from the sun" because during the week the riders several times had to face the rain and on the Col d'Eze there was even a fog zone ...

The final classifications of Paris-Nice 2013

The classification for stage 7/ Nice > Col d'Eze

Here's the top 5 of this solo effort climbing on the Col d'Eze:

1/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - 19'16"
2/ Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) - +0'23"
3/ Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) - +0'27"
4/ Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale) - +0'32"
5/ Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) - +0'52"

General classification

In the final general classification of Paris-Nice 2013 Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale) does the best operation today, climbing up from the 5th to the 3rd place and thus on the podium of this race. Lieuwe Westra disappears from the top 5: because of his disappointing time trial (20th in 20'51") he drops back to the 8th place, thus leaving Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) enter the top 5 at the 4th place, ahead of Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) who drops from the 3rd to the 5th place.

The uncontested winner of this Paris-Nice 2013 however is Richie Porte (Team Sky):

1/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - 29h59'47"
2/ Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) - +0'55"
3/ Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale) - +1'21"
4/ Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) - +1'44"
5/ Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - +1'47"

Points classification

In the points classification, Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) was not completely sure of his victory but thanks to his 9th place in today's stage he manages to stay ahead of Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) who would, thanks to his 2nd place in today's stage, otherwise probably passed in front of the French rider. Richie Porte (Team Sky)'s stage victory allows the Australian rider to enter the top 5 of the green jersey's classification:

1/ Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 88 points
2/ Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) - 83 points
3/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - 68 points
4/ Borut Bozic (Astana) - 60 points
5/ Elia Viviani (Cannondale) - 55 points

King of the Mountains classification

Johann Tschopp (IAM Cycling) secured his polka dot jersey in this classification yesterday already and he thus only had to finish on top of the Col d'Eze today to go home with it and of course the Swiss rider did so. With his stage victory, Richie Porte (Team Sky) takes the additional points he was missing to get ahead of Thierry Hupond (Argos-Shimano):

1/ Johann Tschopp (IAM Cycling) - 64 points
2/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - 27 points
3/ Thierry Hupond (Argos-Shimano) - 24 points
4/ Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) - 17 points
5/ Cyril Lemoine (Sojasun) - 14 points

Best young rider classification

Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) showed once more his talent, not on skis but on the bike, talent which largely allowed him the title of best young rider in this Paris-Nice 2013, even though on the Montagne de Lure he could have adopted a different strategy which might have allowed him to maybe win this race but at least get closer to the final winner:

1/ Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) - 30h00'42"
2/ Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) - +0'49"
3/ Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) - +0'59"
4/ Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) - +2'25"
5/ Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) - +6'13"

Team classification

Finally, we note that the Katusha team, initially not invited to this 71st edition of Paris-Nice wins the team classification, ahead of the AG2R La Mondiale team and Radioshack-Leopard.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2013

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