Place Name: Rue De Vaublanc
Address: 3 Rue De Vaublanc, 45200 Montargis, France
Details: March 9, 2026
After yesterday's loop through Yvelines, the riders finally start their journey South with a 187KM second stage from Épône to Montargis. Any doubt about a sprint on day one is completely erased today because we have a near pan flat course in the final 75KM of racing. Once the riders roll out from Épône, they start the trek in almost an entirely South East direction for the whole stage. The course curls around the busy suburban areas of Western Paris through numerous green zones such as the Forêt Domaniale de Rambouillet and the regional parks of Haute Vallée de Chevreuse and Gâtinais français. The landscape opens up significantly in the last 50KM but the weather forecast is calling for another beautiful day. If there is wind however, the race could be ripped apart with a prevailing wind that blows across the course from the West.
High clouds gathered over Northern France but the temperatures were still up, making for another unusually pleasant day of racing for this time of year. Initially, four riders went up the road including Jasha Sütterlin of Jayco AlUla, Casper Pedersen of Soudal Quickstep, and Mathis Le Berre and Mattéo Vercher of TotalEnergies. Like yesterday, Pedersen and Le Berre fought over the Mountains Points early in the stage with Pedersen winning all of them. In the process, Sütterlin and Vercher dropped out of the move and with 90KM to go, only Pedersen and Le Berre were left out front to manage their tenuous 90 second lead over the peloton. With just two riders out front, the speed was not so high, making it easy for EF-Education EasyPost and NSN Cycling to control the gap.
The race continued in this pattern to the base of the Côte du Pressoir and the final Mountains Points on offer. Le Berre tried to go early to catch his rival off guard but Pedersen had him pegged and 100M from the top, Pedersen rolled Le Berre to take more points for that classification. The bunch came along just 1 minute later with more teams moving forward to prepare for the exit into the exposed part of the course. Lotto Intermarché took up the pace making responsibilities and when the forest gave way to expansive farm land, they found that the wind was light and unproblematic.
With little more to realistically achieve on the stage, Pedersen and Le Berre gave in and retreated back into the peloton with 59KM to go. The bunch trundled along for the next 13KM until the intermediate sprint in Fromont. Lotto Intermarché set up the lead out for Vito Braet who took the sprint. Contesting the sprint and scoring 4 bonus seconds was the clever Juan Ayuso of Lidl-Trek who has eyes on overall ambitions by the end of the week.
Everything calmed back down with riders smiling and chatting but, as these things always seem to go, when the pace is off, crashes happen. With 33KM to go, a number of riders hit the deck from a touch of wheels in the middle of the peloton. Eddie Dunbar of Q36.5, Cees Bol and Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon CMA CGM, Phil Bauhaus of Bahrain Victorious, and Sandy Dujardin of TotalEnergies all came down, with the latter two seeming to be worst afflicted. Fortunately, everyone got back on and reconnected with the peloton.
The pace remained fairly pedestrian until 21.5KM to go when Daan Hoole of Decathlon CMA CGM chipped off the front and went solo. Most other riders wouldn't pose a problem to the peloton but Hoole's time trialing prowess was a concern and it spurred NCN Cycling to start riding. 7KM later, Hoole had built a 22 second lead but it was still NSN Cycling doing all of the chasing. The gap only went up which forced other teams with sprint interests to move to the front to aid in the chase. Movistar decided to take the bait and chase but others like Picnic-PostNL and EF-Education EasyPost were happy to sit back and wait.
Hoole was slowly being brought back and was just 12 seconds ahead through the village of Pannes with 8KM to go. Ineos, EF-Education EasyPost, Picnic-PostNL, and Tudor Pro Cycling all came forward for positioning but it was Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe that took control through a very technical section under 3KM to go. The bunch strung out in single file and Hoole had the advantage of temporarily being out of sight. Under 1KM to go, Hoole was within 5 seconds and the momentum was firmly with the peloton. The Dutchman was caught as the sprint lead outs hit full speed at 700M from the line.
Soudal Quickstep and Tudor Pro Cycling each tried to own the lead out but they got bossed by XDS-Astana with Max Kanter on the wheel of Mike Teunissen. Teunissen expertly dropped Kanter off from the front at 180M to go and no one had the speed to come around the German. Kanter was dominant to the line and took his first win of the season. Behind, it was a bit of scrum. Race leader Luke Lamperti of EF-Education EasyPost was boxed in on the barriers and never was able to open his sprint. Laurence Pithie of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe followed the XDS-Astana train for the last kilometer and came away with a second place, ahead of a resurgent Jasper Stuyven of Soudal Quickstep who rolled back the years and finished in third.
Tags: Paris-Nice, 2026, Paris-Nice 2026, Stage 2, March, Épône, Montargis, Jasha Sütterlin, Casper Pedersen, Mathis Le Berre, Mattéo Vercher, Daan Hoole, Max Kanter, Mike Teunissen, Laurence Pithie, Jasper Stuyven