Dominant Primoz Roglic of Jumbo Visma sprints to victory atop the Col de Turini on Stage 7 of Paris-Nice

Updated 12/03/2022 at 16:00 GMT

Jumbo Visma's Primoz Roglic put on a powerful show to claim a stylish first victory of the season on the only summit finish of this year's Paris-Nice. On the steep final slopes of the Col de Turini, Roglic out-sprinted Simon Yates, Nairo Quintana and Dani Martinez to secure his place at the top of the standings and, with one stage remaining, render the overall victory all but inevitable.

'He's going to do it in style!' - Roglic edges closer to Paris-Nice title with Stage 7 win

Atop the mighty Col de Turini, an indomitable Primoz Roglic powered to victory on stage 7 of Paris-Nice, simultaneously tightening his grip on the yellow jersey. Dani Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers) finished in second place, to take him onto the podium, with Simon Yates ( Team BikeExchange - Jayco) in third.

With ten bonus seconds taking him to eighteen for the race in total, the Slovenian now leads by 46 seconds over Yates going into tomorrow’s final stage.

Having arrived in Nice on Saturday morning, the race to the Sun headed straight into the mountains. Stage 6 was due to bring with it not just the race’s only summit finish, on the fearsome Col de Turini, but snow and sub-zero temperatures as well. To the delight of few, the really bad weather that had been forecast earlier in the week, and which briefly threatened to curtail the stage, had failed to materialise.

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Coincidence or not, with their numbers already down to double digits, a further seven riders registered as DNS ahead of the morning’s start, with a few more abandoning mid-stage.

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The departure of Kevin Geniets came about in the most calamitous fashion. The Luxembourg champion got caught up in the cables of the media mixed zone and suffered a mostly embarrassing but still significantly injurious tumble.

Almost immediately as the flag dropped to signal the official start, eighteen riders broke free from the front of the peloton. With the best placed of them Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels KTM) at 5:17 behind the lead, Primoz Roglic’s team was happy to let it go, even if they were reluctant to allow it more than a short leash.

With Ineos sharing the work with Jumbo-Visma the breakaway’s advantage never rose to above two minutes. The British team were working for their leader Dani Martinez, who won on the same finish in 2019 and was hoping to repeat the feat. Fourth in the GC standings at the start of the day, and less than a minute in arrears, a pounce onto podium, or possibly better was a very real possibility for the Colombian.

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Starting at around 40km into the stage, the category 2 Côte de Coursegoules (8.2km à 5%) presented an hors d’oeuvre of interest ahead of the plat du jour of the HC Turini. Nico Denz (Team DSM) led over the climb to take the maximum five polka dot points on offer, while Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) went for the sprinters prizes that came a further two kilometres down the road.

Halfway through the stage and the break’s gap was down to 1:05. The likelihood of one of them taking the win, which had never looked good, were beginning to bleaken. Into the last 50km their lead fluctuated by a few seconds here and there, but the stage always looked like going to the GC contenders. Arkea-Samsic, another team with an eye on the stage win, pulled hard on the front of the bunch.

And as the road reared up, some distance from the official start of the final climb, the bigger riders began to be dropped from the breakaway, before being caught by the relentless riding of the peloton.

Jumbo-Visma's Slovenian rider and overall leader's yellow jersey Primoz Roglic celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 7th stage of the 80th Paris - Nice cycling race, 155,5 km between Nice and Col de Turini - La Bollene-Vesubie, on March 12,

Image credit: Getty Images

By the time the remainder of the break arrived at the official start of the climb, their lead was down to 57 seconds and never likely to be enough.

As the peloton marched onto it, the larger group had already thinned out significantly. With the road ramping up, it began to do so even more precipitously. The most notable rider to fall away early on the climb was Wout van Aert, leaving Primoz Roglic with only Rohan Dennis and Steven Kruiswijk riding in support.

Roglic lost another domestique, Kruiswijk, just a couple of kilometres into the climb, and surprisingly early for a professional with his pedigree.

Paris-Nice Stage 7 Highlights - Imperious Roglic takes control of race

9km from the summit, Gregor Muhlberger (Movistar) was the only rider left from the break, in possession of a perilously thin 38 second advantage.

Almost halfway up (or down) the mountain and the peloton was down to barely two dozen riders. Pierre Latour, third in the GC, was battling to stay in touch on the hairpins.

The first attack came earlier than expected, and it was Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) who kicked first. It was Roglic who reacted, with Nairo Quintana (Arkea Samsic) and Martinez right on his wheel, as Pierre Latour’s hopes of a podium were sent backwards down the long, winding road. The yellow jersey was disinclined to panic - when does Roglic ever? - and carefully clawed back the British rider.

The telegraphed counterattack from Yates’ team-mate, Martinez, immediately followed. Rather than repeatedly absorbing punches from his rivals at 6km, as the climb arrived at its steepest section, Roglic made the decision to try to finish it off himself. Only Martinez was able to go with him, while Quintana and Simon Yates (Jayco BikeExchange) rode tempo, but ensured they could keep the pair ahead in sight. At 1:45 behind in the general classification, Quintana was playing for the stage win.

Jumbo-Visma's Slovenian rider and overall leader's yellow jersey Primoz Roglic (L) celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 7th stage of the 80th Paris - Nice cycling race, 155,5 km between Nice and Col de Turini - La Bollene-Vesubie, on March

Image credit: Getty Images

Four seconds separated the duo of duos with 3km of the climb and the stage remaining, as smatterings of snow began to appear at the roadside. Five hundred metres later they were one group of four again, and the games could begin.

Simon Yates was the first of the four to attack and Nairo Quintana the least able to respond to it, but as the three slowed, he was able to grope his way back to the lead group.

Twenty seconds further back, Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) was riding into the white jersey.

The leaders rode under the flamme rouge after exactly four hours of riding, seemingly setting the stage up for a track sprint finale. But who would wind it up first?

Into the barriers and the answer, when it came, came as no surprise. No-one could live with Roglic and the Slovenian kissed his hands to crown his first victory of the season.

"A great day," said Roglic afterwards. "You put a lot of sacrifice into it so when you can finish it off, it's really something great." With still one stage remaining, Roglic was keen to point out that he would not be taking the title for granted: "As we saw last year, tomorrow will be a super demanding one."

On the final day of Paris-Nice 2021, while wearing the race leader's jersey Roglic crashed twice and fell to fifteenth in the standings.

A strong finish for Joao Almeida was enough to deliver him the best young rider’s jersey, while Wout van Aert and Valentin Madouas retained their leads in the points and mountains competitions respectively.

Stage 7 - Top 10

1 - Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo Visma) 4:02:47s
2 - Daniel Felipe Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers) ,,
3 - Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange Jayco) +00:02s
4 - Nairo Quintana (Team Arkea Samsic) +00:09s
5 - Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +00:11s
6 - Brand McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) +00:25s
7 - Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) +00:27s
8 - Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) +00:29s
9 - Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) +00:44s
10 - Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) +00:56s

General Classification - Top 10

1 - Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo Visma) 26h 26m 11s
2 - Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange Jayco) +00:47s
3 - Daniel Felipe Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers) +01:00
4 - Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) +01:50s
5 - Nairo Quintana (Team Arkea Samsic) +02:04s
6 - Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) +02:12s
7 - Alexsandr Vlasov (Bora Hansgrohe) +02:22s
8 - Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) +02:56s
9 - Ion Izaguirre Insausti (Cofidis) +03:13s
10 - Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +03:29s

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