Paris-Nice: Porte wins stage 7 as Henao surges into race lead

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Richie Porte (BMC Racing) won the penultimate stage of Paris-Nice on Saturday, attacking out of a select group in the closing kilometres of the climb to the finish on the Col de la Couillole.

Trek-Segafredo's Alberto Contador was next across the stage 7 finish line, with Quick-Step Floors' Dan Martin just pipping Sky's Sergio Henao for third after 177 kilometres.

"It was an incredible satisfaction, words don't sum the feelings up," Porte said of his win after the frustration of dropping out of GC contention earlier this week. "I've got an incredible team behind me. They never lost the faith all week. I must say thank you to them. I wasn't easy to deal with this week. It's been a little bit disappointing, but today goes a little bit to the way of making up for that."

With Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) and Tony Gallopin (Lotto Soudal) both losing time on the challenging final climb, Henao now finds himself atop the Paris-Nice leaderboard headed into Sunday's final stage.

How it unfolded

The peloton set out from Nice under clear and calm conditions, with a group of five quickly jumping away on the day's first ascent. Jan Polanc (UAE-Team Emirates), Axel Domont (AG2R La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Dimension Data), Lilian Calmejane (Direct Energie) and Delio Fernandez (Delko-Marseille) led up and over the climb with just under five minutes.

Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) set out from the bunch in an attempt to bridge. 40 kilometres into the stage, he made contact, with the gap down to just under four minutes. The break's advantage held mostly steady for the next hour, until Calmejane attacked his fellow escapees on the flat run-in to the penultimate climb, the Col Saint Martin. Before long, he had a gap over the other breakers.

Fraile lost touch with the main break group before the climb began, with Perichon and Polanc falling behind on the lower slopes of the ascent, leaving only Domont and Fernandez trying to catch Calmejane out front. Astana's Jakob Fuglsang attacked from the peloton as Fraile and then Polanc and Perichon were swept up by the peloton.

Fuglsang made contact with Domont and Fernandez, but the peloton was closing down the gap rapidly. Domont, Fernandez and Fuglsang were caught as the race neared the Col Saint Martin summit, with Calmejane alone out front. The Frenchman crested the climb with a minute on the bunch. Quentin Pacher (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Diego Ulissi (Team UAE Emirates) and Cyril Gautier (AG2R La Mondiale) set off in pursuit of Calmejane on the run-up to the final climb.

They bridged to Calmejane, briefly making for a lead group of four as the road tilted upward again, but Pacher put in an acceleration that only Ulissi could follow, spelling the end of Calmejane's time out front.

Gautier and Calmejane were swept up by the peloton with a shade under 14 kilometres of climbing still to go. Ulissi dropped Pacher with 12.5 kilometres left to race but a Sky-led peloton started to close him down.

With Sky setting a torrid pace at the head of affairs, the peloton began rapidly shedding riders. Gallopin, who started the day second overall, dropped back, followed by Orica-Scott's Simon Yates just under 11 kilometres from the finish. Jarlinson Pantano (Trek-Segafredo) joined Sky at the front, exchanging pulls with Sebastian Henao to up the tempo even more.

The demanding pace ultimately proved too much for race leader Alaphilippe with around 10 kilometres to go. Although multiple teammates dropped back to lend a hand, the Frenchman continued to lose ground with every kilometre. Dan Martin stayed safely tucked into the GC group to pick up the torch for Quick-Step.

Meanwhile, the lead group caught Ulissi, putting the stage victory back in play. With six kilometres remaining, Sky's domestiques had all dropped back, leaving Pantano alone to set the pace at the front. The Colombian finally ran out of gas with five kilometres remaining. That left a group of just six in the lead: Sergio Henao (Sky), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Richie Porte (BMC Racing), Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida), Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) and Dan Martin (Quick-Step Floors).

An injection of pace from Contador with 3.5 kilometres to go dropped Fuglsang and Izagirre, but the Spaniard couldn't quite get clear. Then it was Porte's turn to jump.

Porte, not a threat for the GC, was given room to roam out front, while Martin lost ground to Henao and Contador. "I wouldn't say I really attacked, I kind of rolled off the front a bit there," Porte said. "I guess the GC guys didn't really have to chase me, but look, that hurt."

Contador pushed clear with 1.5 kilometers left to race, leaving Henao behind with a burst of speed on the steep gradients near the summit, while Martin found a second wind and behind closing in again on the Colombian.

No one could catch Porte, who sailed on to take the stage win. Contador finished 21 seconds behind the Australian, enough to gain some ground on the general classification, but Martin led Henao across the line 11 seconds later. With Alaphilippe over two minutes behind and Gallopin even further back, Henao took control of the race lead. He will take a 30-second advantage over Martin and 31 seconds over Contador into Sunday's eighth and final stage, 115.5km of racing in and around Nice.

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