PREVIEW | Paris-Nice 2025 stage 4 - Will Jonas Vingegaard strike on the first summit finish?
Cycling
Paris-Nice is one of the most reputable and toughest stage-races in the World Tour calendar and every single year it hosts many of the world's best climbers, sprinters and classics riders. This year the race takes place from the 9th to 16th of March. We preview stage 4.
Stage 4 is the first day that features quite a bit of climbing. 2700 meters of climbing on the menu, doesn't make it a true mountain stage but you can't neglect it, and it will be the day where the riders will truly understand their form going uphill.
Don't expect anything crazy before the last kilometers, all legs will be saved for the final ascent to La Loge des Gardes where the last time around it was Tadej Pogacar who won. An explosive ascent, but one where it's possible to make differences.
This climb will be 6.7 kilometers long at 7.1% average gradient. All-in-all a mostly constant climb without too many gradient shifts, but it will be hard right from the base. Attacks are expected in the final kilometers, because if a group goes into the final 1.5 kilometers there will be a small moment to rest there, and otherwise things could come down to a sprint.
The Weather
Maximum temperatures of 8 degrees on the day, no sun and a good chance of rain throughout the day. Typical Paris-Nice weather which will make it quite a difficult day and potentially make bigger differences than expected.
The Favourites
Visma - This is Visma's race to lose now. As expected, they moved into the lead after the TTT and with Matteo Jorgenson in a safe lead. The yellow jersey will do his own pace up this climb once it explodes whilst Jonas Vingegaard can respond to any attack. Likely, they will win this stage because they look to be the two strongest climbers in the race and the team know what to do. Vingegaard will certainly have freedom to attack and gain time on the rest as long as he has legs.
UAE - UAE were at the start the team I believed would be the closest rival to Visma but after today that's no longer the case. Pavel Sivakov is out of the run, and with over 40 seconds lost already they will rather try to finish as best as possible, instead of trying to fight for the GC win as they can end up losing time to other direct rivals in the fight for a podium. João Almeida, by all means, can definitely contest for the stage win. Brandon McNulty is always a wildcard, whilst Jhonatan Narváez will certainly try but likely the climb will be too long for him.
The cold day can lead to this climb doing more damage, however the field has plenty top climbers such as Santiago Buitrago who won the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, Mattias Skjelmose who is on terrific form, a Felix Gall who had a positive TTT and is always ready to attack the climbs, Ben O'Connor who is first out of the GC riders behind the Visma riders and will likely have a more defensive tactic, and the BORA climbers Aleksandr Vlasov and Florian Lipowitz who sit 5th and 6th overall, a good position meaning they won't take too many risks but instead wait things out, likely.
In a 3rd row of favourites I would put in Quick-Step duo Ilan van Wilder and Max Schachmann; INEOS duo Thymen Arensman and Magnus Sheffield; Movistar trio of Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda, Iván Romeo and Pablo Castrillo; Lenny Martínez, Michael Storer, Guillaume Martin, Neilson Powless and Astana duo Harold Tejada and Clément Champoussin. Don't expect attacks from any of these riders, the pace will be very high and their task is to hang on for as long as possible and after the stage think if they want to pursue GC or instead chase a stage win.
Prediction Paris-Nice 2025 stage 4:
*** Jonas Vingegaard, Matteo Jorgenson
** João Almeida, Santiago Buitrago, Mattias Skjelmose, Felix Gall, Aleksandr Vlasov
* Jhonatan Narváez, Florian Lipowitz, Ilan van Wilder, Max Schachmann, Lenny Martínez, Pablo Castrillo, Michael Storer, Neilson Powless
Pick: Jonas Vingegaard
How: Solo win and taking the yellow jersey.
Original: Rúben Silva
☀ Voici le parcours de #ParisNice 2025 !
— Paris-Nice (@ParisNice) December 17, 2024
☀Here is the route of #ParisNice 2025! pic.twitter.com/ynMCs4sVut
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