{"id":192231,"date":"2023-03-06T11:59:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=192231"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:59:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:59:21","slug":"merlier-on-leading-paris-nice-its-a-strong-team-and-they-believed-in-me-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2023\/03\/06\/merlier-on-leading-paris-nice-its-a-strong-team-and-they-believed-in-me-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Merlier on Leading Paris-Nice: \u2018It&#8217;s a strong team and they believed in me today\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Belgian national champion beats Sam Bennet (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) while Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE-Team Emirates) nabs bonus seconds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) took his fourth win of the season on the opening stage of the 2023 Paris-Nice. Soudal-QuickStep took control of the closing kilometres while Trek-Segafredo kept close as the riders went under the flamme rouge. Bora-Hansgrohe then made a well-timed move to the front, which allowed Bennett to start the sprint to the line. However, when Soudal-QuickStep\u2019s Merlier opened up, he quickly went past everyone and maintained a healthy lead all the way to the finish line.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a strong team and they believed in me today. It was a great lead out,&#8221; Merlier said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It was definitely a hard day because there was a lot of stress in the peloton. There was a steep climb 19 kilometres from the finish that was also big tactically. We had two men in there, and then we came back on the last climb. I survived well. Then Kasper Asgreen brought me to the front. From there on, the team kept working together and I can&#8217;t say how great it was to be in this train.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, in the GC, Poga\u010dar did try to make a break work but lacked cooperation from his rivals. Still, he did pick up the six bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint on the C\u00f4te de Dis-sept Tournants and thus already holds an advantage over his rivals. New season, same old exciting racing! Who do you favour for the GC?<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-controller-wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"fr\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udcaa Pr\u00eats <\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcaa Ready <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ParisNice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ParisNice<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZJj8vHtV95\">pic.twitter.com\/ZJj8vHtV95<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paris-Nice (@ParisNice) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ParisNice\/status\/1632710065693118464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async data-src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Paris-Nice Stage 1 &#8211; La Verri\u00e8re to La Verri\u00e8re (169.4 KM)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) \u2013 3:50:52<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Iv\u00e1n Garc\u00eda Cortina (Movistar)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arnaud D\u00e9mare (Groupama-FDJ)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>General classification after stage 1<\/strong><\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), in 3-50-42<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) + 4 seconds<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE-Team Emirates)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) + 6 seconds<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dorian Godon (Ag2r Citro\u00ebn) + 8 seconds<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) + 10 seconds<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Belgian national champion beats Sam Bennet (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) while Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE-Team Emirates) nabs bonus seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":192232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[7010,4619,3559,2816,583,7011,4970],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-192231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-2023-paris-nice","tag-cycling-news","tag-mads-pedersen","tag-paris-nice","tag-road-cycling","tag-sam-bennet","tag-tim-merlier","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - 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