After a final full of suspense at the top of the Loge des Gardes, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) won the 4th stage of Paris-Nice, ahead of David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Wednesday March 8 the day after the victory of the Jumbo-Visma. New yellow jersey, the Slovenian now has a 44-second lead in the general classification over his great Danish rival Jonas Vingegaard, whom he blew up in the last two kilometers of the formidable final ascent (6.7 km at 7.1% on average).
“It was not my goal to take the yellow jersey today but you should never say no to yellow. It’s nice to find this color”, reacted “Pogi”, double winner of the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021 before ditching the tunic at Vingegaard last summer.
Sixth win of the year
If the next Tour is still a long way off, Pogacar, who has already won his sixth victory of the year, made an impression by cutting the line with 43 seconds on the Dane. This one had however planted the first banderilla a little more than four kilometers from the finish. But he never managed to get Pogacar off his wheel, before finally breaking down himself and finishing only sixth in the stage at 43 seconds.
Behind the Slovenian, it was the Frenchman David Gaudu who made the best impression: he took second place overall, ten seconds behind Pogacar and can cultivate great ambitions in this race which ends in two mountainous stages around Nice. this week-end.
Second, yes, “but behind Pogacar!”
Starting against 3.5 km from the summit, when the two ogres got up after their first attack, the French climber was even able to envisage victory by taking nearly 20 seconds in advance, before seeing Pogacar come back with a bang. “In the sprint, he was stronger than me. I’m still second but it’s second behind Pogacar!”, Said the Breton, who had already finished in this place on the Ardèche Classic behind Julian Alaphillipe at the end of FEBRUARY.
“On the first attack” by Vingegaard and Pogacar, “everyone had the same reaction: we are going to let them do the show in front. But when we came back, I anticipated and saw that I had no one in my wheel. We will not have 40,000 opportunities to beat them on a summit finish,” added Gaudu, fourth in the last Tour de France. Pogacar, who never misses an opportunity to win, knew that “we should not let Gaudu get too far ahead”.
As for Vingegaard’s attack, which he did not relay, the Slovenian explained that he had “preferred to wait a bit”, without ever appearing in danger. On the steep slopes of the Loge des Gardes, in the middle of the forest, he was the boss and the development was scathing. Thursday, the sprinters will have a last opportunity to explain themselves with a return to the plain during the fifth stage which stings due south towards Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in the Rhône valley.