Roglic holds on to win Paris-Nice overall as Simon Yates attacks

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Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) survived a real scare from Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) to seal overall victory at Paris-Nice.

Yates won the stage after an explosive attack up the Col d'Eze, and for a while looked like he might take the overall lead too as he built a lead approaching half a minute, while Roglic laboured behind.

But with help from Wout van Aert, who once again rode extraordinarily to pace his teammate up the Col d'Eze and to the finish, Roglic managed to limit his loss to just nine seconds plus bonus seconds.

Yates made his move on out of a select group containing Roglic, Van Aert and Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) on the steepest slopes of Col d'Eze after Quintana had tried and failed to go clear himself with a series of accelerations.

His gap quickly grew to over twenty seconds, about half of what he needed to dethrone Roglic as the overall winner.

Roglic was briefly left with just Quintana for company after Van Aert was distanced following Yates' attack, but the Belgian clawed his way back up again once the gradient levelled out a little, and for the rest of the climb it was Roglic who struggled to keep Van Aert's wheel.

By the top of the climb, the gap had been held at around 20 seconds, and Van Aert and Roglic worked together to bring it down further.

It looked as though they might even bring Yates back before the finish and contest for the stage win, but Yates managed to hold them off on an uphill drag to the finish.

Despite missing out on the overall victory, Yates was still happy to win the stage, giving a delighted celebration at the line.

"I just wanted the stage today. I think the GC was already too far away anyway. For me to take that much time back today would have been a really big ask, so I'm just really happy with the stage win.

When Roglic was dropped, memories of similar collapses in French races, most notably on this same stage at last year's Paris-Nice, were brought back, something Roglic wryly reflected on.

"I don't go without a bit of drama," were his first words at the finish.

"It was super-hard, but I have to admit, but easier than last year, and I am more happy! Big thanks to my whole team, especially Wout [Van Aert] at the end. He's half-human, half-motor. Wout can do everything.

"I was definitely not feeling strong enough," he laughed when asked about being dropped on the Col d'Eze. "It was too steep, I didn't have power. I was really suffering and fighting over the climb to limit the losses. Luckily I knew that Wout had a super day, he was really a big, big help go with me all the way to the finish.

Dani Martinez (Arkea-Samsic) held on to his third place on GC to complete the final podium after he finished in a chasing group that also featured Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), who was dropped by Roglic and Van Aert on the Col d'Eze.

Much earlier in the day, it had been Martinez who began the GC fight with an attack on de Peille, 50km from the finish.

His move saw himself, Roglic, Van Aert, Simon Yates and Quintana move away from the rest of the field, but he was unfortunately jettisoned from that group following an unfortunate mechanical on the descent towards the foot of Col d'Eze.

How it unfolded

The final stage of Paris-Nice tends to be a hectic affair, and this year's finale stuck to the usual formula of constant up and downs over a short total distance, climaxing with an ascent and descent of the famous Col d'Eze.

Contrary to the race's 'Race to the Sun' nickname, it was also a cold, rainy day in the south of France.

There were five climbs in total crammed into just 116km, each of them ranked either category two or one, starting with the Cote de Levens.

David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and David de la Cruz (Astana Qazaqstan) were among seven non-starters today, further reducing a field that had already been decimated throughout the week mostly by illness.

Despite several attempts no breakaway formed on the first climb, nor on the next, the Côte de Chateauneuf.

A fierce pace by Jumbo-Visma up the third climb, Côte de Berre-les-Alpes, did instead see the peloton drastically reduced. Alexsandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), who was seventh on GC, was among those caught out as he sought the medical car.

Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) was also having problems and had to have a bike change as the race approached the day's penultimate climb, Cote de Peille, which was the last we saw of him.

Ineos Grenadiers took over at the front on the climb with Omar Fraile, and Steven Kruijswijk and Rohan Dennis were dropped, leaving Roglic with just Wout van Aert for assistance.

Not wanting to leave it too late, Dani Martinez decided to take the race to Roglic on this climb with 50km still to ride,  launching two stinging attacks. Crucially for Roglic, Van Aert was able to follow the move, and along with Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) and Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco), these riders rode away from the rest.

Wanting to discourage more attacks, Van Aert set a strong pace with Roglic and the other three behind him and was successful in deterring them for the rest of the climb.

By the top, the five riders remained together, with a large chasing group 50 seconds back featuring Martinez's teammate Adam Yates and Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious).

Simon Yates and Martinez did at least manage to make minor inroads when they took three and two seconds respectively at an intermediate sprint 34km from the finish, during the descent towards the foot of the Col d'Eze.

But this minor meant virtually nothing to Martinez just moments later, when he was held up by a mechanical. Subsequently caught in no man's land between the leaders and the chasers, he eventually dropped back into the latter just prior to the start of the climb.

Ineos Grenadiers set a fast pace once Martinez was reabsorbed, and the Colombian attacked on the climb to go clear with Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates). But the leading quartet were too far ahead, and this trio were later absorbed by a large group of favourites, distant from the action that was happening up ahead on the Col d'Eze.