Cavagna frustrated but happy after missing Paris-Nice time trial win by a second

Paris Nice 2021 - 79th Edition - 3rd stage Gien - Gien 14,4 km 09/03/2021 - - photo Roberto Bettini/BettiniPhoto©2021
Rémi Cavagna finished second in TT at Paris-Nice, less than a full second behind the winner (Image credit: Bettini Photo)

As Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) was in the midst of detailing his Paris-Nice time trial performance to the press atop the little hill where the Gien stage finished, a great roar was heard as another rider crossed the line. Rémi Cavagna, “the Clermont-Ferrand TGV”, had arrived.

The French time trial champion had given all that he had, his yell a final expulsion of energy from his pain-racked body. While Roglič continued talking, Cavagna leaned over the barriers, gathering himself. As the Frenchman took a drink and put on a jacket, Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo) made his final surge to the line, crossing it eight-tenths of a second quicker than Cavagna had done four minutes before.

Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014). 

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