tuesday 08 March 2016 at 19h04

Not surprisingly, the victory of the second stage of Paris-Nice 2016 in Commentry was decided in a sprint today. After the longest stage of this 74th edition of the Race to the sun, Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits) seemed to go straight off to victory. However, since he left his straight line and went off to the left he thus prevented Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE), the yellow jersey, from doing his sprint correctly. The French rider thus compromised his stage victory and was declassified at the last place of his group (which means he was 3rd of the stage), the victory thus being for Matthews.

The summary of the 2nd stage of Paris-Nice 2016: Contres > Commentry

213.5 kilometers were on the programme of the second Paris-Nice 2016 stage today and this made it the longest stage of the race.

While the stage finished on the "Place du 14 Juillet" in Commentry today, the weather was more July-like at the start in Contres where the sun was present, even though the temperature didn't reach the levels we're expecting in July ;-). At the finish the sky was grey and there was a cold wind.

Before they got there however, we saw - like yesterday - a 4 men breakaway being formed right from the start, initiated by Anthony Delaplace (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) who got company from Tsgabu Grmay (Lampre-Merida), Matthias Brändle (IAM Cycling) and Evaldas Siskevicius (Delko Marseille Provence-KTM). After about twenty kilometers these 4 leading riders already created a gap which reached its maximum at 10'25".

Controlled by the Orica-GreenEDGE, of the yellow jersey, and Etixx-QuickStep teams, the peloton started to regain some time on the 4 leading riders little by little and after 80 kilometers in the race, the gap went under 5 minutes. When it almost reached 3 minutes, a yo-yo effect happened with the leading riders regaining some time and then losing it again.

When the gap went under one minute, at about thirty kilometers from the finish, Tsgabu Grmay is the first of the breakaway to abandon his efforts and at the first crossing of the finish line the Ethiopian rider was already dropped by the peloton and he finally crossed the line at the end of the stage with a 15'44" delay on the stage winner.

At the first crossing of the finish line, the remaining gap of the leading trio was only 35 seconds and a bit later, Siskevicius and Brändle lost Delaplace when they accellerated and they continued their adventure as a duo but at about twelve kilometers from the finish their adventure came to an end as well.

In the last 10 kilometers, Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) was victim of an accident with a spectator and was evacuated from the race, apparently with a broken collarbone.

Apart from that nothing has happened in the last 10 kilometers and the stage thus ended in a sprint in Commentry. The sprint was initially won by Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits), but the French rider got off his straight line in the sprint, going off to the left on Michael Matthews' line. After the finish, Bouhanni was thus declassified by the jury and the stage victory was awarded to Matthews who thus took some precious bonus seconds for the general classification in which he thus retains the lead!

172 riders finished the stage, because Jérôme Coppel (IAM Cycling) didn't start, Juan José Lobato (Movistar Team) abandoned and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) thus left the race after his crash.

The classifications after the 2nd stage of Paris-Nice 2016

Classification of the 2nd stage: Contres > Commentry

Here's the top 10 of this stage:

1/ Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) - 5h04'26"
2/ Niccolo Bonifazio (Trek-Segafredo)
3/ Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits)
4/ Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) +0'01"
5/ Arnaud Démare (FDJ)
6/ Ben Swift (Team Sky)
7/ André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal)
8/ Wouter Wippert (Cannondale Pro Cycling Team)
9/ Adrien Petit (Direct Energie)
10/ Jonas Vangenechten (IAM Cycling)

General classification

No big changes in the general classification, except for the fact that Michael Matthews secures his leader's position even more:

1/ Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) - 9h41'46"
2/ Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) - +0'14"
3/ Patrick Bevin (Cannondale Pro Cycling Team) - +0'19"
4/ Jon Izaguirre (Movistar Team)
5/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky)

Points classification

In the points classification, the Australian rider also keeps the lead, but the corresponding green jersey will still be worn by Arnaud Démare:

1/ Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) - 38 points
2/ Arnaud Démare (FDJ) - 21 points
3/ Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits) - 18 points
4/ Ben Swift (Team Sky) - 17 points
5/ Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) - 12 points

King of the mountains classification

The King of the mountains classification has not been officially published yet, but as far as I can see it should be as follows:

1/ Jon Izaguirre (Movistar Team) - 4 points
2/ Anthony Delaplace (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) - 4 points
3/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) - 2 points
4/ Evaldas Siskevicius (Delko Marseille Provence-KTM) - 2 points
5/ Angelo Tulik (Direct Energie) - 2 points

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2016

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