Mathieu Burgaudeau takes brilliant win at Paris-Nice's stage five with late attack

TotalEnergie are currently having Pierre Latour in third place in the overall classification but the French team have gotten a triumph bigger than that. Mathieu Burgaudeau won the sixth stage of Paris-Nice after a brilliant attack and just barely managed to hold off the chasing peloton.

KOM classification leader Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Johan Jacobs (Movistar Team), Yevgeniy Fedorov (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Julius Van den Berg (EF Education - EasyPost) and Victor Koretzky (B&B Hotels-KTM) set off on the breakaway. It was a day that on paper was perfectly suited for an escapee group, however the strong headwind and the lack of a strong group up the road tilted the scale towards a sprint at the end.

Trek - Segafredo and Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux took control of the peloton throughout the day and easily controlled the group. In the Col de l'Espigoulier the pace was constant in the peloton, only a small move from Matthew Holmes getting away briefly, as did Soren Kragh Andersen over the technical descent.

In the final hilltop with an intermediate sprint, with eight kilometers to go, some attacks sparked once again in the peloton as Mathieu Burgaudeau launched a move off the group and went over the summit alone in front. Several times Jumbo's Christophe Laporte set off in chase, but the peloton couldn't organize itself perfectly as the climbs weighed on the legs of many.

Trek - Segafredo reorganized towards the end but as Burgaudeau got closer and closer to the end tension grew. It looked as if the Frenchman was going to get swallowed up in the final sprint but he just barely held off the peloton for his first professional win in Aubagne. Mads Pedersen and Wout van Aert came home right behind completing the podium.