Paris-Nice | 2 for 2 as Tim Merlier takes another high-speed sprint victory
CyclingMonday, 10 March 2025 at 16:35
Tim Merlier is without a doubt the fastest sprinter at Paris-Nice and today on stage 2 he has taken his second consecutive win of the week in a bunch sprint for Soudal - Quick-Step, in a day marked by the crashes.
A flat day, with no wind blowing and no climbs or descents in the way, but by no means a calm one. The peloton in France would be in for a roller-coaster but at the start of the day only a small breakaway of three put some spice into the day. Jonas Abrahamsen, Samuel Fernandéz and Alexandre Delettre were the day's escapees.
The fast-moving peloton saw the group getting caught quite early on, but Abrahamsen attacked once again and went solo off the front throughout the majority of the final 50 kilometers. He would avoid the chaos in the peloton where several crashes affected it. First Guillaume Martin; then a mass crash including Arnaud Démare (teammate Florian Sénéchal was forced to abandon the race)...
At the intermediate sprint Matteo Jorgenson snatched two more bonus seconds whilst behind another crash took place and split the peloton, catching out riders like João Almeida, Mattias Skjelmose and Ben O'Connor. The split was then undone shortly after however, and Abrahamsen was then reeled in with 2.5 kilometers to go.
The bunch sprint was true chaos, with no team having a full leadout into the final kilometer but instead moving in two's. Axel Zingle of Visma tried to take advantage of it and launched an early sprint, but he was followed by Arnaud Démare. The sprinters launched their bid for the line but the face at the front was the same as Tim Merlier blasted off to victory once again. Emilien Jearnnière and Hugo Page completed the podium.
Read also
| 1 | Merlier Tim | Soudal Quick-Step | 04:11:29 |
| 2 | Jeannière Emilien | Team TotalEnergies | + 00 |
| 3 | Page Hugo | Intermarché-Wanty | + 00 |
| 4 | Pedersen Mads | Lidl-Trek | + 00 |
| 5 | Kristoff Alexander | Uno-X Mobility | + 00 |
| 6 | Kielich Timo | Alpecin-Deceuninck | + 00 |
| 7 | Zingle Axel | Team Visma | Lease a Bike | + 00 |
| 8 | Démare Arnaud | ARKEA-B&B HOTELS | + 00 |
| 9 | Govekar Matevz | Bahrain Victorious | + 00 |
| 10 | Jakobsen Fabio | Team Picnic PostNL | + 00 |
| 11 | Bol Cees | XDS Astana Team | + 00 |
| 12 | Del Grosso Tibor | Alpecin-Deceuninck | + 00 |
| 13 | Fedorov Yevgeniy | XDS Astana Team | + 00 |
| 14 | Leitão Iúri | Caja Rural-Seguros RGA | + 00 |
| 15 | Molano Sebastian | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 00 |
| 16 | Aniolkowski Stanislaw | Cofidis | + 00 |
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- I'm sure in the Giro you will be brilliant... (maybe fight for GC? this Giro is soft). I can't wait! I will go to watch and cheer for you!
maria2024202419-04-2025 - C’mon, she « married » an infidel, the hijab is just the missing cherry on their fatwa cake ;-)Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Its not the innovations. The top speed is decided by the top riders. MVDP, Pogi, Pedersen all started the hostilities on the Arenberg but it also ended there. In the past the Arenberg was just the start for the first selection and with attrition it kept reducing till the finaleabstractengineer19-04-2025
- She does not wear the Hijab. So doubt they will be very welcomed by the orthodox communityabstractengineer19-04-2025
- I would say that most people would rather see an exciting or strategic race than a boring one with record average speed. Proof of this is that people have rarely complained about a past race being slow but often that it was boring. Fast speeds are often the result of wind direction though it may be true that headwinds or tailwinds influence the way a race is run and on average one may result in more interesting outcomes than the other. Obviously a high speed can become a talking point but that’s about it. I doubt any spectator could tell the difference between riders averaging 43 or 45km/h as they go past so if it weren’t for the data being presented (often wrong anyway like the gaps between different riders) on screen, no-one would know or even try to guess.Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Agree with the first part totally, not the second. It may not be a perfect solution or needed for everyone but what’s wrong with protecting non fully developed kids? It starts when they’re born when you instinctively know you shouldn’t try to make them stand or put them in push-up positions as they’re not ready strength, bone shape or -resistance wise (amongst many things). You don’t send small kids with huge backpacks full of books to school and you don’t expect teens to lumber around building sites chucking cement sacks. There were good reasons for this and the gearing issue was a result of this, especially considering the frail stature of cyclists in general. HOWEVER, the rule has been abandoned as being unnecessary. The original idea wasn’t bad for kids in general but what it overlooked was that by the time kids actually reach the level to enter junior race level and compete seriously, they’ve done enough training to strengthen their mechanisms and over enough time for bone composition to adapt to new loads so they are unlikely to get injured from excessive loads as no-one can push more than a certain human power and they’ve worked their way close to that already. If you think it was overkill, fine but reflect on this, I trained for and had done several marathons and one day decided to enter the first edition of our local one. Despite being used to and perfectly prepared, I was in pain for weeks after and a year later the local media was full of reports of an explosion or injury related visits to doctors post-race by participants. What nobody realised in advance was that the course was very demanding on joints as much of it was in the city centre with short straights and sharp corners with pavements to mount so you were constantly also stepping up and down and leaning hard, just to show how sensitive you can be to new solicitation on the body.Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Let us know when he beats a quality field of sprinters!frieders319-04-2025
- Agreed. What is the point of this? The pros should just start a new league and break away from the UCI. Let it sinkmij19-04-2025
- Who even cares? It’s the goal of a bike race to ride as fast as possible? And that’s what we want to see?? This is maybe the dumbest article ever.mij19-04-2025
- This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. It's an advantage to the person who does his best power at the highest RPM. This rule was dumb in junior races and would be dumb at the pro level.acem8219-04-2025