Team Jayco AlUla walk away from the final stage of the 2023 Paris Nice with an overall victory in the team’s classification after strong and consistent riding from the entire squad throughout the demanding eight-day race.
With consistency in the early sprint stages with Michael Matthews finishing in the top ten on two occasions, followed by an impressive ride in the team time trial on stage three, where the squad finished in third place, just four seconds down on the win, the team sat high up on the teams classification.
The race then headed to the mountains where Simon Yates unleashed his climbing legs to take fourth place on the Queen stage up to Col de La Couillole, before taking another fourth place on today’s final short, punchy stage into Nice, to give Yates a fourth-place finish on the overall general classification, along with the victory in the teams category.
Simon Yates
“Team UAE did a good job there, they still had many guys at the bottom of the climb, whereas last year it was already down to four guys. I don’t know how many guys we arrived with today but it was a sizeable group, I don’t know if that changed anything, but I thought I’d try my cards anyway and see what happens, and that’s all she wrote.
Normally I would come into Paris-Nice in quite good form, but here I’m still just building after starting my season earlier than normal in Australia. I’m actually pretty happy with where I am, it’s not easy to race three of the best guys in the world at the moment, so I come away with what I expected really.”
Paris-Nice – stage 8 results:
1. Tadej Pogacar 2:51:02
2. David Gaudu +0:33
3. Jonas Vingegaard +0:33
4. Simon Yates+0:33
Paris-Nice overall classification:
1. Tadej Pogacar 24: 01:38
2. Jonas Vingegaard +0:53
3. David Gaudu +1:39
4. Simon Yates +2:14
Over in Italy, sprint star Dylan Groenewegen came close to taking his third victory of the season for Team Jayco AlUla on today’s final stage sprint into San Benedetto del Tronto.
Battling neck and neck with Jasper Philipsen in the closing metres, the Belgian rider just denied Groenewegen the win, with the Dutch sprinter having to settle for second place after a strong and committed team performance to deliver him into the position to sprint for the win on the twisty, technical finale of the race.
Dylan Groenewegen – 2nd place
“It was a really hard week and hard stage today at the beginning, there was a lot of climbing but the team did a really good job to take control with the other sprinter’s teams. Once we came on to the circuit it was a fast and hard one and the guys put me into a really good position.
For the final bunch sprint, I was in a good position but there was one rider that was maybe a little more fresh or simply better today, so that is pretty hard to take but I can still take confidence into the next race which is really soon for me.”
Tirreno Adriatico – Stage 7 results:
1. Jasper Philipsen 3:32:36
2. Dylan Groenewegen ST
3. Alberto Dainese ST
Photo: Sprint Cycling
