Lenny Martinez steals Paris-Nice stage 8 win ahead of Jonas Vingegaard, who secures General Classification victory.

Lenny Martinez stole Paris-Nice stage 8 victory from Jonas Vingegaard, who secured the General Classification victory.

The pair had led the race with 21km to go as they turned on the gas for a final sprint finish, as Vingegaard's surge came too late.

Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana) closed out the podium on stage 8 while Dani Martinez's (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) crash earlier in the race did not jeopardise his second-place finish in the GC behind Vingegaard.

After apocalyptic weather on Saturday saw stage 7 heavily impacted, stage 8 promised more favourable conditions for the 128.6km race, which started and ended in Nice on the Allianz Riviera, instead of the traditional Promenade des Anglais (due to local elections).

While the conditions may not have provided a challenge, the three category one climbs packed inside this final day contributed to a dramatic end to the race, brimming with breakaways, solo efforts, and race-damaging crashes.

Right from the flag, attacks were flying with an initial quartet becoming a 12-rider weak pack which was quickly reeled in by the peloton.

Two of the initial quartet, Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Fabio Van den Bossche (Soudal Quick-Step), then embarked on a new attack with five riders, led by Matteo Trentin (Tudor), who established the group with a one-minute advantage over the peloton with just over 100km to go ahead of the first classified climb of Col de la Porte.

The peloton used the climb to catch the five-rider breakaway, reducing their advantage to only 20 seconds as Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal–Quick-Step) jumped out of the peloton to join the front of the race, as they pushed on without the initial breakaway to command the front.

On the next 6.9% gradient ascent of the 7km Col de la Porte, Paret-Peintre attacked again as Marc Soler (Emirates XRG) followed as the other breakaway riders found themselves back in the peloton.

Paret-Peintre reached the summit first, followed by Soler, as Vingegaard led the peloton to add to his King of the Mountain points.

From here, while Paret-Peintre still led the race, Vingegaard controlled it from behind, as he chased the leaders with the help of teammates Bruno Armirail, Victor Campenaerts and Wilco Kelderman at the front of the peloton.

Paret-Peintre still held the lead at the start of the Côte de Châteauneuf-Villevieille, a 6.6km climb which saw Dani Martinez (further down the field) forced off the road by his own teammate, injuring himself and his shot at the GC as he fell one minute 30 seconds behind the peloton.

Martinez was supported at the back by his teammates but was shown no support by the Ineos-Grenadiers-led peloton, who continued to chase down Paret-Peintre, who claimed the maximum points again on the climb to intensify the KOM classification race with only one climb left and 10 points up for grabs.

However, Vingegaard did not want to lose his polka-dot jersey and commanded the peloton to reduce their deficit to a solo Paret-Peintre to only six seconds on the descent.

With only 23km of the race to go, Paret-Peintre is finally caught, despite his best efforts; the peloton caught him on the flat ahead of the final 3.3km climb.

It was then that Vingegaard took full control of the race, making an attack with 21km to go with only Lenny Martinez able to respond, and working together, they quickly built an advantage of 15 seconds over the peloton.

With this lead, the yellow jersey rider took the maximum KOM points, confirming his claim to the polka-dots as well, after a dominant performance across all eight stages of Paris-Nice.

And from there, Vingegaard and Martinez led the race until the closing stages, as with only 400m to go, it came down to a sprint finish.

Martinez sprinted first, and Vingegaard was unable to better his pace, struggling to find a way around the Bahrain Victorious rider.

A late surge from Vingegaard was not enough as Martinez pinched the stage victory from the yellow jersey rider, with Tejada closing out the podium seven seconds later.

Result

Paris-Nice, Stage 8: Nice > Nice  (145km)

1. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorius, in 03:06:43
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike
3. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS Astana Team, +7s
4. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers,
5. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost,
6. Georg Steinhauser (Ger) EF Education-EasyPost
7. Ion Izagirre (Esp) Cofidis
8. Mathys Rondel (Fra) Tudor Pro Cycling, all at the same time
9. Nicolas Vinokurov (Kaz) XDS Astana Team, +44s
10. Marc Soler (Spa) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, at the same time

General classification

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 25:25:11
2. Dani Martínez (Col) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +4:23
3. Georg Steinhauser (Ger) EF Education-EasyPost, +6:07
4. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers, +6:24
5. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +7:31
6. Marc Soler (Spa) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +9:09
7. Ion Izagirre (Esp) Cofidis, +9:19
8. Mathys Rondel (Fra) Tudor Pro Cycling, +10:23
9. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost, +10:33
10. Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), +11:40