Italy’s Davide Cimolai won the hilly fifth stage of the Paris-Nice race as Michal Kwiatkowski cemented his lead over the Team Sky duo of Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas.
The Pole remains one second ahead of Porte and three seconds clear of Thomas after today’s 192.5km trek from the industrial city of Saint-Etienne to Rasteau.
However, Porte will be hoping to claw back time and take the lead in tomorrow’s big mountain stage, with three Category 1 climbs, which should be an advantage to the climbing specialist, who won the race two years ago.
Today’s stage started with a big climb but flattened out enough to give riders the chance to form a breakaway. Thomas De Gendt led heading into the last kilometre but was then caught. Bryan Coquard attacked first, about 300 metres out, but Cimolai countered vindicating his decision to skip the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy. Michael Matthews — the winner of the third stage — finished third. All three were timed in 4 hours, 12 minutes, 9 seconds.
“This is an important victory for me. In previous years I used to go on [the] Tirreno. I’m glad I changed my approach this season and I hope this will help me get a leader’s position in Milan-San Remo,” Cimolai said.
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Tomorrow’s 184.5km sixth stage starts from the southeastern town of Vence before ending in Nice
Greg Van Avermaet sprinted to victory on the third stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico to move into the overall lead. The Belgian won in 4 hours, 58 minutes, 17 seconds over the 203-kilometer (126.1-mile) route from Cascina to Arezzo.
Peter Sagan, who won the same stage last year, was second. He was poorly positioned on the final corner and although he made up ground up the finishing straight, closing to within half a wheel, Van Avermaet held on. Zdenek Stybar was third.
Van Avermaet leads the overall standings, two seconds ahead of Sagan. Adriano Malori slipped to third, eight seconds behind.
The 50th edition of the race across central Italy on Tuesday with an individual time trial.