Place Name: Boulevard Georges Pompidou
Address: 382 Boulevard Georges Pompidou, 06660 Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée, France
Details: March 15, 2025
Winter was not ready to let go of its hold in the mountains of the Mercantour National Park. The Col de la Colmiane was cut from the race and as a result, the stage was only 109KM long. The route followed the Tinée River from Nice all the way North to base of the climb near Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée. The finish in Auron, a climb of 7.3KM at 7%, is a steady climb, always hovering between 6% to 9%.
A lot of riders were interested in the break from the start and a strong group of 15 broke the elastic to get away in the pouring rain. The main name in the break was Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling. He started the stage in 13th overall at 3 minutes 55 seconds. They had 2 minutes 35 seconds with 59KM to go and were being chased by Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike to keep Storer in check. On a winding gorge road with 51KM to go, third overall, Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek, hit a central reservation in the road and took a very heavy fall on his hip and head and was forced to abandon.
The rain subsided and the race went into a holding pattern with Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE-XRG chasing, but they were leaking a few seconds every few kilometers to the break which saw the gap grow out to 3 minutes. XDS-Astana and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe added a man to the chase and the peloton got the gap down to a more manageable 2 minutes 15 seconds with 12KM to go. The break had stripped most of their warm clothes off before the climb but as they approached, the rain started to fall once again and the riders were scrambling to get relief. There would be no relief on the climb however. It was 2C (36F) at the top with rain and sleet. They started the climb with 7KM to go and a gap of 1 minute 55 seconds.
UAE-XRG set a hard pace from the bottom which quickly cut the group to around 35 riders. With 4KM to go, Michael Storer, Georg Steinhauser of EF-Education EasyPost, and Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla were the last ones left from the break as they entered the snow line with their gap was down to 1 minute 25 seconds. Storer set his pace which dropped Steinhauser and then Schmid. Storer went under 1KM to go with snow falling and only the commissaire and neutral service behind him. He raised his hands for his first victory for Tudor Pro Cycling. Schmid was next in, 20 seconds down with Steinhauser in third at 30 seconds.
Back in the GC group, Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious attacked with 3KM to go and Felix Gall of Decathlon AG2R caught on a few moments later. They got a gap but given their GC positions, it was of no consequence to the rest of the riders in the group. Gall came across the line and 17 seconds later, the rest of the GC group came in. Storer jumped nine places in GC to fourth, 2 minutes 25 seconds back on race leader Matteo Jorgenson. Tobias Foss of Ineos lost a bit of time but the rest of the GC generally went unchanged.
Tags: Paris-Nice, 2025, March, Stage 7, Paris-Nice 2025, Nice, Auron, Michael Storer, Georg Steinhauser, Mauro Schmid, Lenny Martinez, Felix Gall