Paris-Nice turned on it's head! Mattias Skjelmose wins stage 6; Brandon McNulty takes yellow jersey; Evenepoel, Roglic and Plapp lose serious time

Paris-Nice absolutely gained a new dimension of it's fight for the win today. Luke Plapp, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic lost a minute to the winning trio in a rainy explosive finale. Mattias Skjelmose won stage 6; whilst Brandon McNulty (the new yellow jersey) and Matteo Jorgenson won a lot of time on the competition.

Cold and rain made some riders quite nervous at the start of the day, and the ambitions of a stage win saw many riders attack at the start of the stage to try and form a breakaway. Mads Pedersen, Laurence Pithie, Christian Scaroni, Mathieu Burgaudeau, Georg Zimmermann, Michael Storer, Marco Haller, Cedric Beullens, Bruno Armirail and Gijs Leemreize.

A very strong group with great conditions to go on to fight for victory, but it wasn't to be. In fact the breakaway was caught still with 60 kilometers to go as INEOS Grenadiers pushed a very strong pace up the hilly section of the middle of the stage. A small split saw Felix Gall get caught out, then UAE Team Emirates contributed to a very high pace in the peloton.

There was a furious leadout to the bottom of the climb of Sur-Loup, BORA - hansgrohe even carving a gap as they led out Primoz Roglic. The Slovenian went on the move right at the base of the climb, briefly joined by Brandon McNulty at the time; then Santiago Buitrago who jumped from behind. However a few riders bridged across and the pace slowed down.

Matteo Jorgenson then attacked with 29 kilometers to go with no response. Start-stop action began in the chasing group as no-one looked to work for their rivals. Mattias Skjelmose and Brandon McNulty got a gap in one of the many attacks that surged, and they then managed to bridge across to Jorgenson.

The trio worked together whilst behind Plapp did not hit the front, and besides Remco Evenepoel no-one made the effort immediately close the gap. The bumpy terrain, wet and very technical descent that followed saw the gap grow and grow as it was not possible to put on a strong chase. In the final uphill sprint Skjelmose took advantage of his lesser GC position to save himself in the final kilometers, and he won the stage with a powerful move.

Brandon McNulty was second on the day but he jumps back into the yellow jersey in a great tactical move and some luck; whilst Matteo Jorgenson was third, moving up to second in the GC and possibly the pole position to win the race overall.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com