Today saw the first showdown between the top-2 from last year’s Tour de France – Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. This time, the honours went to Tadej Pogačar who comfortably took a march on his Danish rival. Attacking with 2.5km to go, he towed David Gaudu to the line but that was no matter with such time made on other rivals today. At the summit, Gaudu wasn’t able to go with the Slovenian’s kick and had to cede the win. The general classification now sees Tadej Pogačar leading by 10 seconds from David Gaudu and 44 seconds ahead of Vingegaard.
The first summit finish of this year’s Paris Nice proved crucial. The early break saw Calmejane, Ballerstedt and Gregaard feature in a 7-man group. The peloton tried a few times to make the most of the testing wind but ultimately nothing truly stuck. Tadej Pogačar’s UAE Emirates team started to fire things up with 30km to go. The bonus seconds at the top of the Côte de Cheval Rigon were claimed by Michael Matthews. Pogačar took the final 2″.
The overnight leader from Stage 3, Magnus Cort, was quickly dropped on the final climb. With Pogačar marking Vingegaard, the Slovenian picked the right time to attack and win.
“It was chaos all day. I’m a little bit surprised [that Vingegaard’s challenge behind him failed]. In the end, it was really tough and he just missed a little bit to catch me and cracked a little bit.”
Tadej Pogačar
“Our goal was to conquer the yellow jersey with Jonas today”, looked back. “He attacked and seized the opportunity because he felt really strong. Perhaps he should not have attacked at that moment. When Pogacar attacked, Jonas went over his limit and couldn’t immediately close the gap.
We certainly don’t think we have no chance. We had hoped for more today, but nothing has been decided yet. In the last weekend, the winner will be determined. For Jonas, there will be two more great opportunities.”
Grischa Niermann, Jumbo-Visma sports director
2023 Paris Nice Stage 4 result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
