The Belgian made it back-to-back wins on a hectic day at the “Race to the Sun”.
Clad in the beautiful yellow jersey, Tim Merlier powered to his second victory of the week at Paris-Nice, retaining the overall lead ahead of Tuesday’s team time trial. It was the sixth success of the season for the 32-year-old, who came out on top after a complicated day on the roads to Bellegarde, where the race returned after six years.
The final 40 kilometers included two nasty crashes, and Tim was caught up behind after the first incident of this type after a rider touched his rear wheel. Fortunately, the general classification leader escaped unscathed and could rejoin the peloton, where his Soudal Quick-Step teammates made sure of protecting him at the front while ramping up the pace behind the lone leader, whose gap they erased by the time the race entered the final three kilometers.
Just like Sunday, the European Champion waited for the final 150 meters to start his sprint – after another excellent lead-out of Bert Van Lerberghe – and once again unleashed a huge speed to put a couple of bike lengths between him and the other fast men on the way to his 23rd World Tour victory.
“This is a win I will always remember, because it’s for the first time in my career that I got a victory in the leader’s jersey. It’s a beautiful success that wouldn’t have been possible without my fantastic team, who controlled the race from the beginning and made sure I was in the best position for the bunch sprint. I’m happy I could make it two victories in two days. We’ll see what I can do on Tuesday, but I know it will be difficult to retain the yellow jersey in the team time trial. Nevertheless, I will do my best”, Tim said after our team’s 20th stage win at Paris-Nice.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
