Paris-Nice stage 5: Olav Kooij claims stunning sprint victory

Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) collected his second victory of Paris-Nice with a stunning turn of pace to take out stage 5 in a sprint finish.

The four climbs and rolling terrain on the road to Sisteron could not prevent a bunch gallop, and stage 1 winner Kooij was a cut above the rest.

Lidl-Trek led out the sprint and their main man Mads Pedersen launched it in earnest, with Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) looking like his closest challenger until Kooij soared up the left-hand side of the road.

Pedersen shook his head in disappointment as he was forced to settle for his second runner-up finish behind Kooij after also losing out to the Dutchman on the opening day. Ackermann clinched the final podium spot on a day where there were numerous high-profile sprinting abandons, including stage 2 winner Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling), Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL), and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck).

“The first day was perfect start and the second sprint we made some mistakes, but today we committed with whole team, and we had a great plan,” said Kooij.

“It was quite a tough day. With the headwind it was hard to control a strong breakaway, and we had to work for it all day. In the finale, most teams didn’t have many guys left to control, so I had to find my way and luckily I was able to open up.”

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The sprint for the line

Race leader Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) finished safely in the peloton to retain the yellow jersey, although he was marooned at the back of a bunch that threatened to split in a late flurry of action.

There were no changes towards the top of the general classification, with another rugged stage to come on Friday ahead of the hillier terrain that will bring the race to a climax at the weekend.

A rugged day and a strong breakaway

There was a bunch sprint at the end, but it was never a surefire eventuality, with a rugged parcours, featured four categorised climbs, a stiff headwind, and a strong breakaway.

The day’s break went almost from the flag-drop, as Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) opened hostilities and drew our five others: his own teammate Sandy Dujardin, Dries De Bondt (Decathlon-AG2R), Alexis Gougeard (Cofidis), Mathijs Paaschens (Lotto-Dstny), and Mathias Norsgaard (Movistar).

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The day's breakaway

Latour was out for the polka-dot jersey, and duly claimed maximum points at all four of the category-3 climbs on the menu to move up to fourth place in the mountains classification.

In between the first two climbs, after around 100km of racing and the gap having started to dip from its 2:30 maximum, the breakaway gained two extra members, as the Lotto Dstny duo of Victor Campenaerts and Pascal Eenkhoorn bridged across. On a long sustained uphill section of the course, which took in three of the climbs, the gap stablisied at the one-minute mark.

Aware of the newfound strength of the break, there was no let-up in the peloton, led by the familiar figure of Tim Declercq and, more surprisingly, the slight figure of David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), whose GC ambitions went up in smoke on stage 4 due to a botched jacket removal.

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Gaudu on the nose of the peloton

Things started to shift with 30km to go, as Gougeard, Paaschens, and Latour all fell away from the break as it started to bleed time from the peloton.

By the time they reached Sisteron, they were in sight, and they crossed the finish line for the first time with 10.5km to go with a lead of only several seconds. That first passage of the line also doubled up as the intermediate sprint but the uninterested breakaway snaffled up the bonus seconds and took any sting out of it for the GC riders in the bunch.

A flurry of action before the sprint finish

A kilometre or so later, the race suddenly became chaotic. An uncategorised uphill kicker represented the final chance to attack, and several riders seized the moment, with Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) jumping into moves.

The whole thing was started by Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), with Michael Valgren (EF) and Bob Jungels (Bora-Hansgrohe) following as green jersey contenders Pedersen and Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ) also joined. Things settled down momentarily but when they kicked off again, former yellow jersey Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) launched into the move, and Evenepoel then kicked out to bridge across with stage 4 winner Santiago Buitrago in his wheel.

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Pedersen (right) and Pithie (in green) were part of the late attacks

As they went over the top of the climb, it all eased up and came back together, which will have come as a relief for the race leader, Plapp, who was curiously riding at the back of the peloton throughout. It’s unclear whether that was by choice or whether he was caught out before the climb and hadn’t been able to move up, but ultimately it was without consequence as the bunch reformed and proceeded towards the sprint finish.

Israel-Premier Tech and Tudor Pro Cycling took it up in the final kilometres, but Lidl-Trek were on the proper lead-out duties, with Jasper Stuyven and then Ryan Gibbons peeling off for Pedersen. The Dane sprinted from range and sprinted strongly, but Kooij almost effortlessly moved his way up in the wind from a few places back before launching into the slipstream of Ackermann and then bursting out to the left. He won by well over a bike length, which was emphatic.

“I was just beaten by a faster guy,” Pedersen concluded.