Mattias Skjelmose escaped to victory on stage six of Paris-Nice, besting the two other members of the race-winning move in La Colle-sur-Loup.
The Lidl-Trek rider went on the attack 27km to go, joining Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and bringing Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) with him. All three gained almost a minute on their general classification rivals at the end of the day, but the latter moved back into the race lead.
Jorgenson attacked with 29km to go, with a brief pause in the group of favourites seeing Skjelmose chase with 27km to go, joined by McNulty. From there, the time gap only grew, allowing the trio to juke it out for the win.
Ahead of the day, it looked like it could be one for a breakaway, and a ferocious pace set early on seemed to support that. One of the key animators was Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), the green jersey holder, who kept attempting to get away, along with Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), the polka dot jersey wearer, and his main rival in that competition, Christian Scaroni (Astana).
It took most of the opening 70km for the break to go, proving how high the pace was and just how many attempts there were. In the end, 10 went clear, including Pedersen, Burgaudeau, and Scaroni, but this was eventually chased down by Ineos Grenadiers.
The peloton was whittled down with less than 40km to go, and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) chose the first pass through La Colle-sur-Loup to attempt something, but his move was soon shut down.
This high pace and highly-fraught atmosphere created the perfect conditions for Jorgenson to attack, followed by Skjelmose and McNulty, while the other GC favourites watched each other, and ended up losing more time that they would have wanted. A crash for Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) saw him lose over two minutes.
McNulty and Jorgenson did the lion's share of the work in stretching the gap back to Roglič, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and company, as Skjelmose sat on, content in the knowledge that he had the best shot of winning the stage.
This is exactly what he did, springing away with just under 200m to go, to take his first victory of the season, and make up for all the effort that his team, especially Pedersen, have put in this week.
"I'm really happy and surprised," Skjelmose said post-stage. "I was feeling quite good all day, but these days are quite special. You need a lot of luck, but the team worked perfectly for me after Mads was brought back from the breakaway. When the team works like this, it minimises all the luck you need.
"Remco or Primož, one of the guys high up on GC were closing, and then I tried to pull a little bit and they let me go, so I attacked. Then Brandon joined me."
"Bigger miracles have happened than me winning Paris-Nice, but I think the other guys are stronger than me," he continued. "Today was a bit of weird way to win, because I played on me being down on GC. It's not the nicest way to win, and the others were stronger than me I think. I feel better than when I won the Tour de Suisse last year."
12 months ago the stage to La Colle-sur-Loup was cancelled due to high winds, but now the French town finally has witnessed an exciting stage. The race is finely poised as it heads into its final two punchy stages.
Results: Paris-Nice, stage six, Sisteron > La Colle-sur-Loup (198.2km)
1. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, in 4:36:51
2. Brandon McNulty (USA) UAE Team Emirates
3. Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, all at same time
4. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, +52s
5. Harold Tejada (Col) Astana Qazaqstan, +53s
6. Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Fra) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
7. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
8. Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike
9. Primož Roglič (Slo) Bora-Hansgrohe
10. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers, all at same time
General classification after stage six
1. Brandon McNulty (USA) UAE Team Emirates, in 22:15:58
2. Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +23s
3. Luke Plapp (Aus) Jayco AlUla,+34s
4. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +54s
5. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, +1:03
6. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers, +1:14
7. João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates, +1:30
8. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, +1:36
9. Harold Tejada (Col) Astana Qazaqstan, +1:37
10. Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike, +1:39
