Paris-Nice 2025 Stage 1

March 9, 2025 The race to the sun, in its 83rd edition, starts its journey South on Stage 1 from Le Perray-en-Yvelines. The route is generally flat with just 1,300M of elevation over 156KM of racing. The riders will complete two separate loops. One loop North, then one South East, before doing the first loop again to finish where they started in Le Perray-en-Yvelines. Taco van der Hoorn of Intermarché-Wanty, Alexandre Delettre of TotalEnergies, Samuel Fernández of Caja Rural Seguros RGA got up the road in the early break. Their lead went out to 2 minutes 30 seconds but the peloton had them at 40 seconds with 77KM to go. There was not much a concerted chase, the bunch were relaxed and just rolling along. The gaps remained tight and van der Hoorn called it a day and dropped back to the peloton with 61KM to go. Fernández and Delettre were caught with 49KM to go as teams were getting organized and color blocking across the road. Everyone seemed content to ride quite calmly until 25KM to go on the approach to the 1KM Côte de Villiers-Saint-Fréderic. Visma-Lease a Bike and EF-Education EasyPost kept safe near the front on the lead in while Tudor Pro Cycling took over and led to the top. The pace was quick but the bunch was more or less together for the short descent. The teams lined up once again in color order until 11KM to go when Ineos strung the bunch out for the Intermediate Sprint in Les Mesnuls. Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious put in a move on the rise to the sprint but he was marked out by Visma-Lease a Bike, EF-Education EasyPost, and UAE-XRG. Jhonatan Narváez of UAE-XRG countered and took 6 seconds at the sprint with Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike in second with 4 seconds and Magnus Sheffield of Ineos in third with 2 seconds. Counter attacks started to fly before the sprint teams could reorganize and, with 7KM to go, Josh Tarling got away with Matteo Trentin of Tudor Pro Cycling and Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek. Skjelmose sat on which killed the move and the trio were brought back with 2.5KM to go. A headwind into the finish made it hard for any team to stay on the front and, into 1KM to go, it didn't seem like any one rider was riding with anyone else from their team; more like 150 individuals all vying for the win. Soudal Quickstep led through the final corner at 650M to go but it was still a mad scramble at 350M. Yevgeniy Fedorov of XDS-Astana had the best line with 200M to go on the inside of a sweeping right bend but Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep managed to straight line the corner and, with his speed, was unmatched when he hit the front. In typical style, he showed a clean pair of wheels to Arnaud Démare of Arkéa-B&B Hotels who finished in second and Alberto Dainese of Tudor Pro Cycling in third.