"Had to chase for 10 kilometres. When I got back, we stopped again" - Paris-Nice leader Matteo Jorgenson baffled by neutralization chaos

Paris-Nice is not called 'The Race to the Sun' for no reason, as the riders are literally having to make their way through hailstorms and freezing conditions before reaching Nice. Matteo Jorgenson wore and lost his yellow jersey today, and he was definitely not happy with the chaotic situation that unfolded following the race's neutralization.

The Visma rider, like many, used the neutralization to put on new clothes and hide away from the brutal weather conditions inside a team car. But the riders began to move without much communication, leaving many confused as to what was happening on the road.

Jorgenson, together with a few Visma teammates, had probably heard through the radio the acceleration of a few Movistar riders, and that the INEOS Grenadiers riders had linked up with the breakaway. Whilst on paper the stage was neutralized, for a good 25 minutes the entire peloton continued on without it being clear what was happening.

"There was no explanation. When I was in the back of the car, I saw the red car drive away. I jumped back on my bike, and had to chase for 10 kilometres," the American said in a post-race interview. "When I got back, we stopped again. Then they decided to continue riding. It went up and down, it was a lot for the body".

Teammate Jonas Vingegaard also criticized quite directly the decision to continue the race in what he had described as horrible conditions: "We should never have ridden this finale. It was freezing and no one in the peloton felt any warmth," he had reported. Vingegaard would go on to take Jorgenson's yellow jersey at the end of the day.

"I don't know if it affected me more than others, but it was an internal rollercoaster. I was warm in the race and focused, and then it started to hail. They stopped us, and we were able to put on new clothes, more jackets. It was raining very hard, and we stopped at the coldest moment," he continues.

In the final climb Jorgenson wasn't tasked with attacking but instead to just follow the team's main rivals. He did so perfectly but could not hold the decimating pace of João Almeida in the final 500 meters, letting go of the wheel of the Portuguese who then went on to win the stage. Jorgenson dropped to second in the overall classification, now five seconds behind his teammate Vingegaard.