As an example of Europe's abnormal colder-than-cold cold-snap, on Monday, the daytime/night-time temperature range for Brussels was 0 degrees and -4 at night. Meanwhile, way down in balmy Mawson, one of the largest bases on the Antarctic mainland, they also had a daytime maximum of zero, but at night it was only -3.
On Tuesday, the freezing cold conditions continued, throwing Stage 2 of the Paris-Nice stage race into disarray and leading to a shortened - but frighteningly fast - stage of only 46.5 kilometres, covered at the blistering pace of 52.13km/h. Today's stage from Thiers to Craponne-sur-Arzon was also cut to 118 kilometres, but again, this in no way detracted from the standard or speed of the racing, with the first group of 111 riders averaging 43.9km/h on an tough, undulating parcours that contained five categorised climbs.
