03/03/2024

Olav Kooij outsprints Mads Pedersen to take victory on electric opening to Paris-Nice 2024

The 2024 edition of Paris-Nice has opened with a bang! With the GC riders already coming to the fore and putting in early testers for their rivals, Olav Kooij eventually outsprinted Mads Pedersen in tight finale.

With three men taking to the breakaway, Mathieu Burgaudeau of TotalEnergies and EF Education-EasyPost duo, Stefan Bissegger and Jonas Rutsch, the peloton never really allowed them a potentially stage winning gap.

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Their day out on the attack was brought to and with just under 40km to go as the peloton reorganised and prepared to head towards a bunch finale.

With bonus seconds on offer at the intermediate sprint with just under 18km to go, the GC man came to the fore. Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Matteo Jorgenson took the maximum 6 seconds on offer, Remco Evenepoel taking 4 with Egan Bernal picking up 2.

After the sprint, Evenepoel actually kept his acceleration going, with Jorgenson and Bernal right on his wheel as were two Lotto Dstny riders, covering the move for their sprint hopeful, Arnaud De Lie.

Although the move was eventually reeled back in, damage was done with the likes of Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobsen both out the back of the bunch.

With 13km to go, on the final climb of the day, Evenepoel went again with Bernal and Primoz Roglic quickly sniffing the danger and latching onto the back wheel of the Belgian.

Even though the winds weren't high, the relentlessly attacking nature of the racing was seeing different groups form all the way down the road.

The next man to make a move was Anthony Turgis, with the Frenchman actually gaining around 19 seconds by the time the race crossed the 5km to go marker.

Turgis was caught with around 2km to go, with more and more of the sprinters who'd been dropped earlier in the day, regaining contact with the front of the bunch.

In the sprint, Mads Pedersen was the first to open the sprint, but he couldn't hold on as Olav Kooij came around right at the death to secure victory with Laurence Pithie completing the podium.