Fearlessness rewards Mathieu Burgaudeau: "I went full gas to have no regret"

Bravery was rewarded today at Paris-Nice as TotalEnergie's Mathieu Burgaudeau got his first professional victory after a fearless attack close to the end of the stage. With no-one being able to follow, he was able to survive despite the chase of the World Tour peloton.

It wasn’t planned. I’ve followed the attacks and after that I went full gas to have no regret. I gave everything," Burgaudeau said after the finish.

After the breakaway was caught, it became apparent that the stage win on today's Paris-Nice stage would come from someone who had hidden within the peloton throughout the day. Whilst Trek - Segafredo took up the majority of the chase, they found little collaboration in the final hour of racing.

On the final hilltop finish several attacks popped off, Burgaudeau has shown this year several times his power on these explosive effort, resembling Julian Alaphilippe - both has a rider and physically. He attacked before the intermediate sprint and rode past the group of riders who had attacked beforehand. His gap never grew much and it seemed as if the peloton had him under control, but only in the finishing straight did the sprinters understand the Frenchman was not going to be caught, indeed grabbing the victory by the closest of margins.