{"id":198172,"date":"2025-03-13T14:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=198172"},"modified":"2025-03-13T14:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:12:09","slug":"weather-sows-chaos-in-paris-nice-as-almeida-pips-vingegaard-on-stage-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/03\/13\/weather-sows-chaos-in-paris-nice-as-almeida-pips-vingegaard-on-stage-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather Sows Chaos in Paris-Nice as Almeida Pips Vingegaard on Stage 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

A funny thing happened to the riders on Wednesday\u2019s Stage 4 of this year\u2019s Paris-Nice with about 60 km left to ride on the 163.4 km course from Vichy to the summit finish at La Loge des Gardes: the temperature fell about 10\u00b0C in two hours, and it began to rain, sleet, and even hail.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rain, sleet, hail, snow<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As riders hustled to get their rain gear from team cars and wriggled into them, the race organizers debated what to do as the precipitation turned into a downpour and the roads became slick, even icy in spots. In addition, snow was falling at the finish line, at the summit of the final climb (6.7 km @ 7.1%). Finally, with about 45 km left to ride, the race jury announced that the race would be neutralized for as long as the treacherous conditions persisted, and the peloton came to a complete stop.<\/p>\n

At the time of the stoppage, an eight-rider breakaway had a lead of 2:20 over the peloton. In addition, thanks to a dominant team time trial on Tuesday, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike\u2019s Matteo Jorgenson led the GC by six seconds over teammate Jonas Vingegaard, with Jayco AlUla\u2019s Michael Matthews and Ben O\u2019Connor sitting third and fourth, at 21 seconds.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the break was allowed to restart with 28 km remaining, and the three riders who had been chasing\u2014Josh Tarling, Tobias Foss (both INEOS Grenadiers), and Dion Smith (Intermarch\u00e9-Wanty)\u2014were allowed to start 1:35 later. The peloton then started riding again at 2:20 behind the breakaway. However, while the weather had improved and the road surfaces had dried sufficiently for the race to resume, temperatures remained very cold, and riders could be seen shaking their arms or slapping their chests to get some warmth back into their bodies.<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Paris-Nice (@parisnicecourse)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n