Paris-Nice | Jonas Vingegaard crashes and loses yellow jersey to Jorgenson; Lenny Martínez wins on ultra-steep finish

Team Visma | Lease a Bike has had a very mixed day at Paris-Nice, as once again they finish second and see the race lead change. Victim of a crash earlier in the day, Jonas Vingegaard failed to have the legs in the finale and cracked, losing key time. Matteo Jorgenson is the new race leader after a strong performance on the final climb, where Lenny Martínez was the strongest to take the stage win.

The start of the stage was very fast, fruit of a day that could've potentially gone for a breakaway. Ultimately many made their effort to try and form a breakaway, but it was a small move from Ben Swit and Thibaud Gruel that ended up forming the escapee group. The duo never threatened the peloton.

But it wasn't a calm down behind, as race leader Jonas Vingegaard himself went down with just over 80 kilometers to go. The Visma rider didn't suffer big injuries but the mishap didn't bring any positive news. With 43 kilometers to go, exactly as had happened yesterday, Tobias Foss of INEOS launched an attack bridging across to Swift in the head of the race. He then set off by himself forming the new head of the race as the former breakaway was caught.

In the penultimate climb of the day the pace was very hard in the peloton, and the same was said of the uphill intermediate sprint where Florian Lipowitz went on and snatched two seconds in the important fight for the podium.

Foss was caught before the final climb and the fight into it was brutal, with Lidl-Trek and Visma fighting to enter in front (although Jonas Vingegaard slid back the peloton before the start of the ascent). Axel Zingle and then Brandon McNulty hit the front then working for Almeida.

Matteo Jorgenson then spent most of the climb in the front of the group, in the ultra-steep gradients it was all about the legs. Jorgenson pushed the pace all the way to the line, and in the final meters only Lenny Martínez had the legs to really explode out of the American's wheel to go on and take an impressive stage win. Clément Champoussin finished second and Jorgenson was third, climbing back into the race lead. João Almeida struggled and lost some seconds, whilst Vingegaard had a very difficult time and lost around 25 seconds at the line to his teammate (including bonifications).