Paris-Nice: Bennett sprints to stage 3 victory

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Bora-Hansgrohe's Sam Bennett claimed victory on stage 3 of Paris-Nice with a well-timed sprint in Chalon-sur-Saône, beating Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin) and John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) to notch up the biggest win of his career to date.

Arnaud Démare (FDJ) came home in sixth place to retain the yellow jersey after a stage that played out in a rather more orderly fashion than the two days of windswept carnage that preceded it.

The only real deviation from the anticipated script here came in the finishing straight. When Fabio Sabatini delivered his Quick-Step Floors teammate Marcel Kittel to the front with 250 metres to go, the German appeared in the box seat to claim victory, but he was unable to maintain his advantage and faded to finish fourth on the stage.

Bennett was tucked on Kristoff's wheel as the sprint began, and surged to the front in the final 100 metres to take the win ahead of the Norwegian and the fast-closing John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo). This year's Paris-Nice boasts an exceptionally deep field of sprinters, which only added to the prestige of Bennett's first-ever WorldTour win.

"I'm so happy to get this result, you don't know what it means to me," said Bennett. It was the Irishman's first win of the new season, though he insisted that he had been not lacking in belief ahead of Paris-Nice.

"I had a lot of confidence coming into this just from the feeling in my legs. I had good form recently. In the Tour Down Under, I felt I had the speed but I just didn't get an opportunity. I knew today with the support of the team something was possible. I didn't know if that was going to be a win or a top five, but I thought something was possible. In the end, I got lucky. The guys did a fantastic job, and I want to thank them so much."

The Katusha-Alpecin team was active towards the front in the closing kilometres, but Bennett played down the idea that popping up on Kristoff's wheel in the finishing straight had been a tactical masterplan. "To be honest I was just fighting for position," he said. "It was hard to stay in position, so I didn't really see the front."

Maillot jaune Démare enjoyed a relatively untroubled day in the main peloton, and he maintains a lead of six seconds over Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step) ahead of Wednesday's time trial. Kristoff moves up to third, 13 seconds down, while Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step) lies in fourth, 17 seconds down.

How it unfolded

After being scattered to the four winds over the opening two legs of Paris-Nice, there was a rather more tranquil beginning to proceedings for the peloton on Tuesday. The early break was established quickly, within two kilometres of the start in Chablis, and for most of the day, the peloton was content to allow the three leaders their freedom.

Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale), Ben King (Dimension Data) and Romain Combaud (Delko-Marseille) combined well over the course of the afternoon to build a maximum advantage of seven minutes before Démare's FDJ team came to the front of the peloton and set about cutting their buffer down to size.

With 30 kilometres remaining, the gap stood at 1:30, as Fortuneo-Vital Concept joined FDJ on the front with Dan McLay in mind, and the trio of escapees became a duo on the final climb of the day, the category 2 Côte de Charrecey, as Ben King dropped back.

When Latour and Combaud entered the final 20 kilometres with just 50 seconds in hand, it seemed as though their expedition off the front was drawing to its conclusion, but the French duo battled gamely in the finale and was only swept up beneath the flamme rouge.

Behind, the sprinters' teams, most notably Astana and Katusha-Alpecin, contributed to the chase effort. The run-in to the finish was a technical one, and Dutch champion Dylan Groenewegen's hopes of stage victory were ended by a crash on a roundabout with a little over three kilometres remaining. By that point, Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data) had already abandoned the race after he crashed ahead of the day's final climb.

After Latour and Combaud had been reeled in with a kilometre to go, Quick-Floors took over at the front, but Kittel may feel that he came to the front too early. The German was unable to sustain his effort, and the spoils fell to Bennett, who becomes the second Carrick-on-Suir man to enjoy success in the Race to the Sun after Sean Kelly, who won the event overall on seven successive occasions between 1982 and 1988.

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