Arnaud Démare wins stage one of Paris-Nice in photo finish

French sprinter Arnaud Démare wins the opening stage of 2018 Paris-Nice on gruelling cobbled climb to the finish line as late crash takes down section of peloton

Arnaud Démare wins stage one of 2018 Paris-Nice. Photo: Yuzuru Sunada

(Image credit: Yuzuru Sunada)

Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) won the first stage of the 2018 edition of Paris-Nice on Sunday in a photo finish sprint ahead of Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida).

So close were the two riders on the line that it took several minutes for the verdict to arrive that Démare edged the win by a matter of millimetres.

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Stephen Puddicombe is a freelance journalist for Cycling Weekly, who regularly contributes to our World Tour racing coverage with race reports, news stories, interviews and features. Outside of cycling, he also enjoys writing about film and TV - but you won't find much of that content embedded into his CW articles.