Rémy Di Grégorio wins in the rain

Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana) launched a late attack to win the seventh stage of Paris-Nice on a wet and windy day in the south of France The Frenchman jumped away with 13km to go and hung on to the narrowest of leads to win. Second place went to Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and third to Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky).

"This is beautiful," Di Gregorio said. "This win comes after a lot of work and reconsideration of myself as a pro rider. I'm so happy for all the people who have believed in me, there are a lot of them!"

HTC-Highroad's Tony Martin finished in the same time and so retained the overall lead. Martin and Andreas Klöden marked each other in the cold and rainy conditions to finish fifth and fourth respectively, seven seconds adrift.

The stage started with a minute of silence for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, before the riders got underway in the rain and wind. The race started without Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil), Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) and Daniele Righi (Lampre), who were suffering from various illnesses.

Nineteen riders dropped out along the way as it was anything but a "Race to the Sun". Racers started in Brignoles with a strong headwind as they travelled toward Nice. Some of the withdrawals included Nicolas Roche (Ag2r-La Mondiale), who had big ambitions for his co-captain Jean-Christophe Péraud in fifth overall after yesterday's time trial; Sandy Casar (FDJ); Peter Sagan and Eros Capecchi (Liquigas); and Fränk Schleck (Leopard), who withdrew after getting cold and suffering stomach issues.

There were many attacks early in the race. Most notable, Laurens Ten Dam (Rabobank) was the first man to the top of the côte des Tuillières at 47.5km, but the peloton regrouped at 75km thanks to the initiative of Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana)

The first successful attack came at about 80km when Karsten Kroon (BMC) and Eric Berthou (Bretagne - Schuller) got away. The duo quickly built up a lead of nearly seven minutes. The two riders clung desperately to their lead, but it came down and with 25km to go, Kroon dropped his companion and continued alone.

"Everyone in the bunch was happy when these two guys went away because it was a very fast 80km of racing at the beginning," said yellow jersey wearer Martin.

"The most difficult thing was to avoid the crashes. This was one of the most dangerous days in my cycling career. Even when we went slow, people were crashing. Two of my teammates [Tejay van Garderen and Konstantin Sioutsou] crashed, I hope they're ok."

There were numerous crashes on the wet roads throughout the day. Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil) was the first man to slide in front of the cameras as he was descending the col de Gourdon at 151km. With 20km to go, green jersey Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervélo) crashed for the third time, this time into a wall, and his hopes of stage victory vanished although he did still manage to complete the stage.

Movistar led the chase to catch Kroon in the hope of setting up Xavier Tondo and the Dutchman was finally caught with 13km to go.

On the last downhill before the 2km uphill finale in Biot, a lone leader Di Gregorio, who never had more than 25 seconds advantage, dropped the gauntlet as his teammate Robert Kiserlovski crashed in a spectacular manner. The Croatian Kiserlovski ended up under a truck parked on the road side and was transferred to hospital reportedly conscious and with nothing broken.

The final two kilometres were dangerous. First, Di Gregorio slipped badly and almost crashed. His foot came out of the pedals but miraculously he stayed upright.

Tondo attacked in the closing uphill kilometre to try and go across to Di Gregorio, drawing a group with him, including yellow jersey wearer Martin. But Di Gregorio somehow managed to hang on and rejoice wildly as he won by four seconds. Ironically, Tondo crashed at the end of the stage after touching wheels and slid across the finish line. It was a dramatic end to yet another enthralling stage at Paris-Nice.

"I've taken some risks, but with moderation," said Di Gregorio after he successfully held off the chasers, including most of the top 10 of the GC.

"I'm confident of winning the overall classification, providing that I avoid crashing again," said Martin with one stage remaining on Sunday.

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