Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) confirmed a career-first overall victory at Paris-Nice with second place on stage 8, losing out narrowly to Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious) in a two-up sprint after the pair attacked away in the final 20km
Vingegaard tried to accelerate away solo after a huge final lead-out from Victor Campenaerts, which shredded the lead group, and while everyone else faltered, Martinez was able to follow on the steep roads of the Côte du Linguador.
The pair worked well to hold off the chasing group behind and reach the finish in Nice together, but with no gifts in this sport, they began to look at each other with Vingegaard sitting on the Frenchman's wheel, ready to sprint.
With enough time to do so as they approached the new finish line beside the Allianz Riviera stadium, home to football club OGC Nice, Martinez kept his cool before launching an almighty 300-metre sprint to hold off Vingegaard, who came out of his wheel but was unable to pip him to the line.
"Today was almost the perfect day; we had a lot of fun. We raced full gas racing all day, and finally, I'm able to win Paris-Nice. It's been a tough one for me, but I'm extremely happy to sit here in the yellow jersey today," said Vingegaard after the finish.
"Of course, I would have loved to win the stage as well today, but Lenny was very strong, so he deserves to win as well.
It actually means a lot to me to win Paris-Nice. It's been the one that I just couldn't get right; now, finally, I get it right, and that makes me extremely happy. It's a good start to the year and something I'm very proud of."
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Despite going down hard in a clumsy crash caused by teammate Laurence Pithie, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe did well to put out a fire and protect Dani Martínez's second place overall, with Aleksandr Vlasov and Pithie working hard in the chase to save his position, despite being in obvious pain.
Fourth place overall, Kévin Vauquelin got his Ineos Grenadiers teammates to take over at times on the front, but he was unable to really put pressure on Georg Steinhauser, who actually proved the stronger of the two on the key Linguador climb, ending in the German confirming a well-earned podium finish by the time they reached Nice.
Martinez thanks Vlasov after saving his second place on GC (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
With 130km of brutal racing in the mountains near Nice in store, racing got off to a muted start, with five riders getting up the road to form a breakaway: Tim Marsman (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Alexandre Delettre (TotalEnergies), Matteo Trentin (Tudor), Fabio Van den Bossche (Soudal-QuickStep) and Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis).
The racing was almost entirely uphill, even leading onto the foot of the first categorised climb, the Col de la Porte, with Decathlon CMA CGM, Movistar, Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG all sharing time on the front to chase down the break.
As the road kicked uphill on the 7km climb, the breakaway riders began to falter with attacks coming out of the peloton from Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM), Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda (Movistar) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep), who formed a leading trio.
Paret-Peintre quickly emerged as the strongest, however, jumping away on his own. The closest rider to his back wheel was UAE's Marc Soler, who tried to mount a counter. With the Frenchman cresting the KOM point first, he held around a 25-second lead over the Spaniard.
The peloton was led by Visma-Lease a Bike for Vingegaard, who controlled things around a minute down on Paret-Peintre, with Soler in no man's land between the main group and lone leader – knowing his time was done, he soon took a gel and sat up, waiting for the chasers.
Ineos Grenadiers took over on the front of the peloton for Vauquelin, clearly trying to capitalise on his stellar form and move onto the overall podium ahead of Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost).
The upping in pace was followed by a disaster for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, as Laurence Pithie inadvertently caused his leader Martínez to crash by moving across the road and looking the other way.
After starting the day in second place, his GC position was now under big threat as he remounted after being sat visibly in pain for some time and being forced into a chase behind the peloton. With 30km to go, Red Bull had reduced the damage to 1:15, but with climbing still to come.
Having retaken control on the Côte de Chateauneuf-Villevieille (6.7 km at 6.4%) and brought Vingegaard safely down the descent, Visma controlled much of the final 50km and led him to the foot of the Côte du Linguador (3.3 km at 8.2%) with Paret-Peintre reeled back in.
Vingegaard only had Campenaerts left to help him as they reached the final categorised climb with 21km still to race, and his pace shredded the group before Vingegaard made his hit out for glory, with only Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) able to match him.
Martinez was the only rider able to follow Vingegaard (Image credit: Getty Images)
Vauquelin had begun to struggle behind as Steinhauser found more strength in his legs, but there was a long way to go before the podium spots were confirmed. Martínez had been well piloted back to only a minute down by his Red Bull teammates, but he still wasn't in contact with those chasing him on GC.
Vingegaard and Martinez crested the final categorised climb with a 30-second advantage on the chasing group, made up of Vauquelin, Steinhauser, Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), Mathys Rondel (Tudor), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost).
The cooperation in the chase wasn't necessarily poor, but Vingegaard did pull through with the Frenchman to try and keep them in front heading into the final 10km. This built them a big enough lead heading into the last kilometre that they started to really look at each other, almost allowing the chasers back into the fray.
Martinez stayed calm despite Vingegaard no longer helping him, but the Dane was unable to add a third stage win and cap off what has been a very successful first appearance in 2026, with the Frenchman holding onto his effort in the sprint to narrowly beat the overall winner at the line.
James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.
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