Paris-Nice 2024 Stage 5

March 7, 2024 The race has reached the half way point and the riders finally made it to Provence on their way to the Côte d'Azur. Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R, Alexis Gougeard of Cofidis, Victor Campenaerts, Pascal Eenkhoorn, and Mathijs Paasschens of Lotto-Dstny, Mathias Norsgaard of Movistar, Sandy Dujardin, and Pierre Latour of Total-Energies made up the numbers of the break. Campenaerts and Eenkhoorn were not part of the original break but the peloton was pushing and got within a minute and they decided to jump across and join their teammate. At 30KM to go, the break started to disintegrate. Lidl-Trek were piling on the pace in the peloton. Some of the sprinters were dropped but there were plenty of fast guys left to fight for the stage. The break continued to work but the collective strength of the bunch was too great and they were caught at just under 10KM to go. In the sprint, Lidl-Trek showed their cards in the final KM and had two in front of Mads Pedersen. As Pedersen, it looked a little long. Pascal Ackermann of Israel-Premier Tech was charging to Pedersen's left, out of nowhere came Olav Kooij of Visma-Lease a Bike around Ackermann and Pedersen. He had enough momentum to freewheel across the line to take his second win of the week.