Not so Nice finish

Defending Tour de France green jersey winner Robbie McEwen told eurosport.com of the potential havoc to be expected from the gruelling final stage inserted in this year's Paris-Nice. "They have the threat of very few riders actually finishing Paris-Nice," warned last year's winner of two stages.

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In most years, Paris-Nice either finishes with an individual time-trial up the Col d'Eze or with a sprint finish on the famed Promenade des Anglais along the beach. But for its 61st edition, organisers from A.S.O - the same company that runs the Tour de France - have chosen a mountainous course, sending the riders no fewer than three times up the Eze before a 16-kilometre descent to a seafront finish.

"If the good climbers decide to really race from the first climb, you're going to see more than half the peloton dropped," warned McEwen who won last year's final stage.

"This year, I won't win the final stage," the Australian Lotto rider stated bluntly. "I'm not happy with the stage. It's losing something of its tradition," he added, comparing the sprints of old with the Champs-Elysées finish on the Tour de France.

McEwen told eurosport.com that he was racing to overcome knocks and pains: after an early-season knee injury that kept him off the bike for ten days, the Lotto rider was hit by a flu bug that had him on a week of antibiotics since the day before the Het Volk.

McEwen finished tenth in the Het Volk, 3:30 behind race winner Quickstep's Johann Museeuw.