It didn't take long for the fireworks to start at Paris-Nice 2024. Thanks in part to the attacks of Remco Evenepoel, the GC riders came to the fore as early as the opening stage.
"The intention was to get bonus seconds, which we succeeded," Evenepoel told Het Nieuwsblad post-stage. "There was one, Matteo Jorgenson a little quicker: he started a little earlier. Plan A was to continue at the top but they were all domestiques of sprinters who were along and they did not want to participate. Which is their right."
In the battle for bonus seconds, Evenepoel, Jorgenson and Egan Bernal were in the fight. Notable by his absence however, was Primoz Roglic. "If we have a plan, Roglic is usually stuck to my wheel. I didn't see him, that was why I kept going so hard," Evenepoel reflects of the situation. "I think he just wasn't sitting right at the front. That is always the case in your first race of the year: then you have to regain some confidence. We also rode so fast that not many men had an answer and we rode away with four or five. I don't know if Roglic didn't want to or couldn't follow. You should ask him that."
"We did what we wanted to do. Taken a few seconds, that's something. Not fallen, that's something. The team is there, so that is good for morale," he concludes. "This was probably the most dangerous stage of this Paris-Nice purely in terms of hectic pace and we survived it well. Everyone was immediately in their place, so the first test in France was a success."
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