They call Paris-Nice the Race to the Sun, but stage 4 of this year's race provided plenty of reminders of how harsh the conditions can be in France in March, too, as riders squelched and shivered their way to the finish line at Uchon on one of the toughest days of 2026 so far.
Crashes combined with atrocious weather conditions to see multiple high-profile abandons, from race leader Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) to Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Dan Hoole (Decathlon-CGA CMM) and no less than 9 other early exits. Add in the three non-starters, amongst them another crash victim from earlier on in the race, Eddie Dunbar (Pinarello-Q36.5) and 15 riders are out by the half-way point of Paris-Nice.
Yet those who remained in the race also had their own tales of woe and suffering on a day where incessant rain - when it was forecast to stay dry - freezing temperatures and racing from the gun made just finishing an achievement in itself.
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Nearly ten minutes separated the first top 20 at the finish - the kind of margins normally seen in a full-on Alpine stage of the Tour - and over 35 minutes between stage winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and the last man over the line, Max Kanter (XDS-Astana), victorious on stage 2 but surely with nothing but a hot shower and warm clothing on his mind when he reached the finish 48 hours later.
“I finished with nothing left in the legs, we were all dead, I think. Today will remain in the head for a long time," Lenny Martínez (Bahrain Victorious), already on the back foot when he was dropped in an early echelon, told CyclingProNet at the summit of stage 4, "and now we've got to ride back down the climb to the buses."
"It was really, really hard from the gun," Dani Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), the rider who ran Vingegaard the closest at the summit but who barely could react when the Dane attacked with a kilometre to go, told CyclingProNet. "The team did a fantastic job, I was finally up there almost by inertia, and I was completely out of energy."
"It was for sure a really fast, crazy stage," added Vingegaard's teammate Edoardo Affini, "I was able to protect with Jonas and make sure he was up there straight from the gun There were only the two of us [in the front group of 40]- so we had to gamble a little bit.
"Later, after one of the downhills, we were riding quite in front, there were some Bora guys, Trek and then us. I was riding behind Ayuso. I don't know what happened, but I think his bike just slipped a bit with the back wheel, and he just crashed in front of me.
"I'm really happy I was able to brake just in time to avoid riding into him, which would have bad for me, but you know - an 85 kilo guy riding into you at 70kmh-80kmh is probably not nice.
"I hope he didn't get too much damage, I hope he's ok. Then my day was over, I couldn't do more to get back to the front group, but I later heard Jonas won, so that makes the day a little bit sweeter."
Others had a tough day too, even when like Affini, they had something to celebrate.
"Days like this are super-hard," Georg Steinhauser, the EF Education-EasyPost rider who rode to a notable fifth on the stage and who is now third overall, told reporters at the finish.
"Cross-winds right from the start, it was a hectic start, and then there was this nasty crash, I was lucky to avoid it."
"It went right from the start, it was a tough day with all those splits," Steinhauser's teammate Alex Baudin added, "personally speaking, the rain really cuts through my legs and it's going to hurt a lot tomorrow at the start."
