Max Schachmann overhauls Primoz Roglic on final stage of Paris-Nice

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Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) won Paris-Nice after Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) endured a nightmare final day of the race.

Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) won the sprint ahead of Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) from a diminished peloton to claim victory of the stage, but the peloton was absent of Roglic, who had been dropped earlier in the stage having suffered two crashes earlier in the stage.

With Roglic out of contention, Schachmann was able to cover attacks made by the Astana Premier Tech duo of Alexander Vlasov and Ion Izagirre, who end the race second and third overall.

Roglic's problems began early in the stage when he crashed for the first time.

Although he was able to make it back to the bunch on that occasion, a second crash later on proved to be more fatal, as he was distanced from the peloton and unable to catch back up after he quickly ran out of teammates, and the peloton pressed on.

His rivals' decision not to sit up and let him return will inevitably be seen as controversial although Roglic himself was magnanimous at the finish, where he found and offered Schachmann a fist bump.

Roglic's agony was Schachmann's ecstasy, as the German defended a title he had looked certain to cede to the Slovenian.

Neither did he come under much pressure from other riders hoping to take Roglic's yellow jersey instead of him, as the final climb to the finish lacked a severe enough gradient to cause selections.

Instead, a sizable bunch sprint decided the stage win, won by Magnus Cort.

"It was a very intense stage, three times over the same climb," said the Dane at the finish. "It was hard to predict...and then we had the Primoz crash. But in the end, it came down to a sprint, and I was still there, so I'm very happy.

"It was a very tactical last few kilometres, as there were no trains to keep the speed up and keep people in position. It was really about keeping the elbows, and I kind of did a little bit of my own lead-out. I'd seen the finish coming around the last two times and knew it was really quick and that there was a small corner with 150m to go. So I thought if I was first through that corner then nobody could pass me."

How it unfolded

Contrary to custom, the final stage of this year's Paris-Nice did not actually finish in Nice, but Levens instead, as Covid-related lockdown restrictions prevented the riders from visiting the Promenade des Anglais.

Reduced to just 92.7km, the stage was expected to be fast and furious, and indeed multiple attacks were launched from the flag.

Several riders spent time out front before being caught again, as no decisive breakaway was formed. Among them were Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), who attempted the kind of sneaky move up the road these short final stages are renowned for to improve his position of 10th on GC.

The first major incident of the stage happened at the back of the race, rather than the front. Overall leader Primoz Roglic went down in a fall, suffering a painful-looking road rash to his left thigh, that was clearly visible through his torn jersey.

He was paced back into the peloton by his Jumbo-Visma teammates, but the question of whether the fall would weaken the hitherto unflappable Slovenian hovered tantalisingly over the race.

The next significant attacks weren't made by GC contenders smelling blood, however. Instead, a four-man group consisting of Tim Declercq (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Jonas Rutsch (EF Education-Nippo), Sven Bystrøm (UAE Team Emirates) and Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) went clear.

They were joined by Warren Barguil (Arkea Samsic), Cees Bol (Team DSM) Stefano Oldani (Lotto Soudal) and Laurens De Plus (Ineos Grenadiers), who bridged across on the second of the day's three ascents of Cote de Duranus.

While that group remained within 30 seconds, there were still plenty of riders intent on joining them up the road, as things failed to settle down in the peloton and attacks continued to be attempted.

A group of nine riders succeeded in going clear at about 40km from the finish, comprised of Omar Fraile and Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana Premier Tech), Krists Neilands (Israel Start-Up Nation), Michael Matthews (BikeExchange), Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Damien Touzé (AG2R-Citroen) and Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious).

The two groups came together 24km from the finish, at which point Rutsch attacked, joined by Bystrom, Bernard and Barguil.

Back in the peloton, there was more drama, as Roglic found himself out the back of the peloton again on the run-in to the final climb, having suffered a seconds crash. He was briefly left to pull a group that had been distanced until teammates dropped back to help him.

Sensing that the race for overall victory was on, Bora-Hansgrohe and then multiple other teams upped the pace in the peloton.

An increasingly desperate Roglic burned out all of his teammates, and, save for a few helping hands offered by riders like Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsic) and Victor Campenaerts (Qhubeka-Assos), was left to chase for himself. Against the combined strength of the teams working together in the peloton, he began to lose more and more time.

The intense racing rang the death knell for the breakaway, which was caught by the peloton on the third and final ascent of Cote de Duranas, 11km from the finish.

By this time, Max Schachmann was the new virtual leader.

On the climb, Astana Premier Tech switched their attention from distancing Jumbo-Visma to working over Schachmann, with Vlasov attacking, and Izagirre pinning himself to Schachmann's lead when he covered the attack.

With both the GC and the stage win up for grabs, and no team with the numbers to control the diminished peloton, there was a flurry of attacks and counter-attacks on the 5.5km uphill drag to the finish.

However, none of them managed to stick, with the gradient not being severe enough for gaps to open up between the GC riders.

Gino Mader (Bahrain-Victorious), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and Neilands were the only riders who managed to get a gap, but they too were caught 1.8km from the finish.

The race, therefore, ended in a sprint, allowing Cort to take the stage victory, and Schachmann the overall victory.