Paris-Nice

Tim Merlier made it five victories this year with another powerful sprint that gave absolutely no chance to his opponents in Le Perray-en-Yvelines, where the 156.1km stage 1 concluded. It was a dominant victory for the 32-year-old Belgian, who continued his superb start to the season, which has so far seen him take a pair of wins at both the AlUla Tour and the UAE Tour, before his success at the “Race to the Sun”.

Soudal Quick-Step was a team on a mission Sunday afternoon, moving to the front of the peloton as soon as a three-man breakaway formed and controlling their gap with the amazing Ayco Bastiaens, who once again delivered a solid effort to bring back the leaders before the race began heating up. On the two small climbs that spiced up the final 16 kilometers, multiple riders tried to go clear, but our teams pulled hard in the peloton together with other squads to make sure the day would come down to a bunch sprint.

Going under the flamme rouge, Tim had his excellent lead-out man Bert Van Lerberghe with him, and after coming out of a tricky bend with 750 meters to go, he waited for the final 200 meters to bolt clear and take his 55th pro victory, which put him into the yellow jersey.

“It’s always nice to start a stage race with a victory. It was our goal coming into the race and I’m happy I could deliver it for the boys today and repay them for all their hard work. A couple of teams tried to make the race hard with 70 kilometers to go, then there were a couple of attacks on the final climbs of the stage, but we remained together, chased the leaders in order to bring them back and managed to close the gap. In the final kilometer, I enjoyed a perfect lead-out and took the win. It feels great to have this start to the race”, a smiling Tim said after his second victory in Paris-Nice.

Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images