Soler takes Paris-Nice as Yates runs empty

Long touted as the natural successor to Miguel Indurain and Alberto Contador, Marc Soler (Movistar), winner of the 2015 Tour de L'Avenir, snatched a dramatic overall win in Paris-Nice, wrecking Simon Yates' best-laid plans with an attack a la Contador on the rain soaked roads of the Cote d'Azur. Soler is the first rider since Contador in 2007 to win both the yellow and the best young rider jerseys in the 'Race to the Sun.'

Soler's overall win, by a mere four seconds, after he finished third behind back-to-back Nice stage winner, David De La Cruz (Team Sky) and fellow Spaniard Omar Fraile (Astana), further boosts Movistar's all-star stage racing firepower, with the 24-year-old demonstrating he has now every right to be taken as seriously as Mikel Landa, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde.

Soler is always quick to play down the comparisons with Indurain and Contador, which inevitably followed his spectacular overall victory.

"I've heard it a few times," he said afterwards, "but I'm not at their level yet. I'm still learning."

But he admitted that he had Contador in his mind when he launched his attack on Yates' 37 seconds overnight lead on the Cote de Peille.

"I was trying to replay a little of what Contador did in Paris-Nice," he said. "I was a big fan of his and I wanted to ride in his style. I thought that maybe the stage win was possible, but I was thinking more of the podium than of taking the jersey."

For Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), bushwhacked in the rain by a Spanish trio, it was a bitter ending to a Race to the Sun in which, after winning Saturday's summit finish to La Colmiane, he had high hopes.

Yates had to wait on the finish line to hear of Soler's narrow victory and was clearly bitterly disappointed to lose by just four seconds.

"When Marc went on the attack, we still had a long way to go and I still had many rivals to watch," Yates said. "I can't watch everybody and I can't follow everybody, so you have to take a risk sometimes. In the final, I didn't have the legs to close the gap. But I did the best I could. Today a great rider won.

"Marc did a really good ride and I congratulate him," Yates said. "He's going to be a very good rider but we've known that for a long time already. Of course, I had the stage win yesterday and I'm getting closer to an overall win. I lost the Tour of Romandie on the last day last year in the time trial by 20, or 30 seconds, and I've lost Paris-Nice by four seconds today. So I'm getting closer and hopefully one day I will take the top spot."

How It Unfolded

The weather on the Promenade des Anglais could hardly have been worse this morning, as driving rain and high winds lashed the start area and swept across the hills inland from Nice. There were four non starters for the 110 kilometre final stage: Dries Devenyns (Quick Step), Nils Politt (Katusha), Christophe Laporte and Cyril Lemoine (both Cofidis). They would later be joined by a lengthy list of abandons.

The first signs that the peloton perceived Yates' lead as vulnerable came after 20 kilometres, when de la Cruz, Fraile and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), together with Jesus Herrada of Cofidis, broke away on the Cote de Levens. As a flurry of attacks came and went in the ebb and flow of the first hour, Yates seemed to expend a lot of energy following moves from rivals including Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain Merida), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) and Julian Alaphilippe (Quickstep)

Eventually, after 60 kilometres, Alaphilippe and Fraile led the yellow jersey group by a minute and fifteen, after Fuglsang dropped out of the move following a crash. But when Fraile dropped Alaphilippe and moved ahead, alone, at the foot of the Cote de Peille, that gave Soler, de la Cruz and Gorka Izagirre their cue to give chase.

It was the decisive moment in this year's Paris-Nice and it was too much for Yates, who suddenly found himself isolated and forced to chase, without any team mates. With 40 kilometres still to race, Soler, de la Cruz and Fraile pushed on, maintaining their lead even through the numerous slick and treacherous bends taking them over the Col d'Eze and to the foot of the final climb, the Col des Quatre Chemins.

With Bahrain-Merida's Izagirre brothers moving clear of a faltering Yates to close the gap, the outcome still hung in the balance even as the break sped back down towards the Promenade des Anglais, but then when the Izagirre brothers wiped out, on a left hand hairpin, just six kilometres from the finish, Soler's hopes, not just of a podium finish, but even of overall victory, suddenly got better.

Until that point, with Yates chasing and the Izagirres closing, a Soler win had looked uncertain, but the crash gave the Movistar rider renewed impetus on the fast roads back into central Nice.

"We were a little surprised by how strong Soler was," admitted Bahrain-Merida sports director, Gorazd Stangeli afterwards. "It was a game of poker, deciding whether to attack or to defend our position. After Soler went away, we didn't know which tactic was best, because we could have been in danger of losing Jon's podium spot. I think without the crash they (the Izagirre brothers) would have got onto the podium, because we lost 15 seconds. But they decided to attack and take risks in the descent."

Soler opted not to compete for the win, leaving an exultant de la Cruz to open his account with Team Sky by repeating his stage win from a year ago. Thirty eight seconds later, Yates crossed the line, already looking downcast, in a group containing Wellens and the Izagirre brothers. Soler's overall win may have been a little unexpected, but the 24 year old rode consistently throughout the week, taking second place on the stage four time trial, eighth in the key summit finish at La Colmiane on Saturday and third on the final stage into Nice.

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