The full 2023 Paris-Nice route has been presented, with the March 5-12 stage race including two summit finishes and a 32.2km team time trial.
A team time trial has not featured in Paris since 1993 and in what represents a game-changer alternation in the race regulations, times for each team will be taken on the first rider from each team to cross the line, not the fourth or fifth.
Other standout features of the 2023 Paris-Nice route are a tough summit finish on stage 4 at the Les Loges de Gardes ski station, a stage 6 ‘wall stage’ that would do credit to any Tirreno-Adriatico route, and a return to the Paris-Nice’s highest summit finish, last used in 2017, at the Col de la Couillole on the final Saturday.
More familiar elements from this formidably complex route are two early flat stages where cross-winds and echelons are likely, and the showdown stage round Nice on Sunday 12th that so nearly poleaxed last year’s winner Primoz Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).
Roglič is not taking part this year as he recovers from off-season operations on his shoulder, meaning Tour de France winner and teammate Jonas Vingegaard will lead Jumbo-Visma and be one of the pre-race favourites.
David Gaudu, Christophe Laporte, Arnaud Démare, Romain Bardet, Florian Sénéchal, Simon Yates, Daniel Martinez and Stefan Küng are also expected to contest the 2023 'Race to the Sun'.
The 1,201 kilometre 2023 Paris-Nice route kicks off with a circular course starting and finishing at the town of La Verriere just west of Paris on March 5th, and then following that up with another tricky, fraught run through exposed terrain just south of the capital to Fontainbleau.
Cross-winds and splits in the peloton beckon, although sprinters Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny) and Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) will be eying these stages as well.
Paris-Nice history, culminating in last year’s dramatic opening leg where Jumbo-Visma clinched all three top spots after a cunning late breakaway, strongly suggests an early GC hierarchy could have emerged after these two stages. But the race’s first team time trial on stage 3 since ONCE swept the Paris-Nice field back in 1993 at Roanne could well have an even more striking effect.
The 32.2km distance is double that of the last two individual time trials in the 2021 and 2022 editions of Paris-Nice. Yet the key difference is that times will be taken on the first rider to cross the finish line rather than the fourth or fifth rider to cross the line, as per usual.
It remains to be seen how this rule change could change team's TTT strategies for what is already considered one of the most complex of road racing specialities.
The climbs on the 2023 Paris-Nice Route then kick in with a vengeance on stage 4, with a very rugged last 50 kilometre and a tough mountain top finish at La Loge des Gardes, a 6.7 kilometre climb at over seven percent.
However, the 90th anniversary of Race to the Sun seems to have taken a leaf out of the route book of Tirreno-Adriatico to judge by the ‘shark’s tooth’ stage profile on stage 6. Vaguely similar to the very lumpy 2021 Paris-Nice stage from Chalon-sur-Saône to Chiroubles won by Primoz Roglic, this year’s ‘wall stage’ route is far denser, with viciously steep segments to tackle on each of the classified climbs on the back roads behind Nice.
Each of the Cotes des Tuilleries (km 80), the Cote de Callian (km 112), the Cote de Cabris (km 133), the Cote de la Colle-sur-Loup (km 166) and the Tourrettes-sur-Loup (km 176) has ramps of between 12 and 20 percent, prior to a 20 kilometre headlong dash to the finish at La Colle-sur-Loup. It’s the kind of stage that could decide the race overall even before the more familiar, although equally daunting, back-to-back climbing treks the riders face through the Alpes Maritimes on the final weekend.
Saturday’s second summit finish, the 1,678-metre Col de la Couillole, is both the highest ever used in Paris-Nice and comes at the end of a 15 kilometre grind, one of the most relentless ascents of the race.
Its only previous appearance in Paris-Nice was in 2017 with a win for Richie Porte although more recently it has also formed part of the route of a small summer one-day race, the Mercan’Tour Classic.
The 2023 Paris-Nice ends with the final traditional ‘fireworks’ stage around Nice, with three first-category ascents and the drop off the Col d’Eze crowning the overall winner.
Paris-Nice 2023 route
- Sunday March 5: Stage 1: La Verrière - La Verrière 169.4 km
- Monday March 6: Stage 2: Bazainville - Fontainebleau 163.7kms
- Tuesday March 7: Stage 3: Dampierre-en-Burly - Dampierre-en-Burly 32.2kms (TTT)
- Wednesday March 8: Stage 4: Saint-Amand-Montrond - La Loge des Gardes 164.7km
- Thursday March 9: Stage 5: Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise - Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux 212.4kms
- Friday March 10: Stage 6: Tourves - La Colle-sur-Loup 197.4 km
- Saturday March 11: Stage 7: Nice - Col de la Couillole 142.9 km
- Sunday March 12: Stage 8: Nice-Nice 118 km
