Tom Boonen disagrees with Paris-Nice neutralization: "The riders got even colder and it became even more dangerous"

The brutal weather conditions yesterday at Paris-Nice led to a neutralization that turned into absolute chaos. For around half an hour the race was either stopped on it's tracks or moving with the peloton split to bits and unsure of what exactly was going on. Classics legend Tom Boonen believes that neutralizing the race made things worst due to the cold, since the stage wasn't cancelled.

“By not continuing the race, the riders got even colder and it became even more dangerous," Tom Boonen argued in the Wielerclub Wattage podcast. "Moreover, those men could not warm up in the team bus. With that neutralization, they actually created the opposite of what they wanted to achieve".  

The neutralization came to be due to a hailstorm, and it was not safe to continue racing under such conditions, besides the extreme cold and wetness that affected the riders. But then the problems in communication when moving again also affected the stage quite a bit. “Why is it never possible to get the riders on the same page? Because the stakes are so high. It is then up to the jury to ensure that the entire peloton is together at the restart.”

However aside of Boonen's point, the main question is if the stage should've continued after having been neutralized. Many riders, including new race leader Jonas Vingegaard, were unhappy with what had unfolded and admits that he never managed to warm up even on the final climb - whilst Steff Cras abandoned the race with hypothermia.

“There was melting snow that you could ride through perfectly, but there had also been an accident with a motorcyclist. And a team car from Decathlon-AG2R had crashed into something," Jan Bakelants pointed out. "I think the organization took the leap forward because they thought: Something might happen, a crash for example.”

The chaos then ensured most likely due to the speed at which the riders were told to start riding again, and the Belgian understands how this couldn't be contained: “The riders and the team leaders could not properly discuss with each other what the plan was to follow. Everyone rode a bit all over the place.”