Paris-Nice: Matthews wins stage 3

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Michael Matthews made the most of a perfect lead-out from his Orica-GreenEdge team to take victory on stage 3 of Paris-Nice. The Australian was delivered to the front in the final two corners and powered home to beat Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek Factory Racing). Matthews also moves into the race lead, just one second ahead of Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep).

Orica-GreenEdge drove the peloton under the flamme rouge, flanked by Lampre-Merida, stringing out the peloton through the twisting finish in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule. They had taken up the push in the final five kilometres as they brought back a late attack but still had the numerical advantage in the last 500 metres with four riders sitting on the front.

Matthews began his sprint as the peloton rounded the final corner, putting in an extra kick in the exit of the turn to dispatch of the chasing Cimolai and Nizzoli and take his first victory of the year. Alexander Kristoff had to go the long way around in the final corner and could only manage fourth, while the previous day’s winner, André Greipel, was nowhere to be seen, finishing well down in the bunch.

The bonus seconds earned put Matthews at the top of the general classification with Kwiatkowski and Dennis just a second behind him. Matthews credited his team with the win and race lead.

"I wasn't sure what to expect before this Paris-Nice but we had really good training with the team in South Africa and we brought very strong guys to help me here. They did the hard work, mine was the easy part," Matthews said.

"To hold the yellow jersey is incredible. Before I left, my girlfriend asked me to bring back a yellow lion but a yellow jersey will top it. It's also a great reward for the team after the amazing job they did. I don't know about my form. I might have ups and downs. Tomorrow is a hard stage and I don't know the final climb. But I will hold on to this jersey for as long as I can."

How it happened

The third stage of Paris-Nice brought the riders 179 kilometres south from Saint-Amand-Montrond to Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule. After winning the opening stage Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) still held a slender lead in the overall competition ahead of BMC’s Dennis. There was a slight cloud over proceedings as the AG2R-La Mondiale team reacted to the EPO positive of teammate Lloyd Mondory.

That was soon forgotten when the flag was dropped and racing began. Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and Florian Vachon (Bretagne Seche-Environment) formed the first attack of the day after nine kilometres of racing. At third in the mountains classification Gilbert was in with a chance of taking the polka-dot jersey.

Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Antoine Duchesne (Europcar) set off in chase of the leading pair. Wiggins dropped back to the peloton not long after, leaving Duchesne alone in his pursuit. The Europcar rider never got closer than two minutes and the pack pulled him back. There was more to come from the bunch with Trek Factory Racing pairing Bob Jungles and Gert Steegmans jumping off the front at the sprint, earning Jungles a potentially important bonus second.

After the first KOM, the two escapees led the bunch by more than four minutes with Gilbert taking the maximum points to put himself ahead of jersey wearer Jonathan Hivert (Bretagne Seche-Environment). Behind the leading duo, riders continued to try and bridge over and it was Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) who finally made the junction at kilometre 74.

On the Col dela Bosse, just passed the halfway mark, Gilbert added another four points to his mountains tally, securing himself the polka-dot jersey for at least a day. With the help of Voeckler the advantage of the leaders grew once again and breaching the five-minute mark with just over 50 kilometres to go.

With all of the day’s three climbs done and dusted Katusha put men on the front to assist the other sprinters’ teams and began to make some headway in the chase. The leading trio found their gap cut down by a minute in the subsequent 10 kilometres. As the peloton passed the line for the first time with 20 kilometres to go, the gap had been brought down to just 43 seconds. Knowing that he was guaranteed the mountain’s jersey and not willing to waste any more energy than necessary, Gilbert sat up and waited for the peloton leaving Voeckler and Vachon to forge on.

Vachon was the next to fall back into the clutches of the peloton 10 kilometres later, with Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) joining forces with Voeckler almost simultaneously. Perhaps trying to distract from the negative media attention around the team, AG2R-La Mondiale’s Jan Bakelants and Romain Bardet also struck out. They made contact with the two out front just as Voeckler gave up the attack.

A furious chase from the sprinters’ team ensued and the gap never grew too far. They were barely allowed 16 seconds before they were finally caught with two kilometres to go. Trek Factory Racing, Orica-GreenEdge and Giant-Alpecin all had representatives on the front as the break was brought back in but it was between Orica and Lampre-Merida going into the final kilometre.

After two top-ten finishes in the previous two stages, Matthews was able to convert the fantastic efforts of his team into a stage win and a yellow jersey.

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