2021 Paris-Nice Stage 3 Results & Recap
Stage 3 of the 2021 Paris-Nice is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Bissegger stuns competition in Gien\nBy Clara Beard
Watch out world, 22-year-old Stefan Bissegger (Ef Education - Nippo) has arrived on the pro scene and is already making waves, winning today's Paris-Nice time trial ahead of French TT champion Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) by less than a second. The Swiss rider's TT abilities were on the radar after he finished second to world champion Filippo Ganna at the UAE Tour time trial a few weeks ago, and he shone again today on the 14.4km route in Gien. He won the race with a time of 17:34, averaging 49.2 km/h.
Bissegger now leads Paris Nice ahead of Cavagna, and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) sits third, six seconds back.
"I worked a long time for this," Beissegger said. "I'm quite young, but I think I could show that I'm here. The time trial is really my thing, I come from the track. Short courses like this one are good for me. It's nice to come here and take the win. I train a lot on the TT bike so I can handle it pretty well. It definitely makes me happy. It's one of the biggest races of the early season and the first yellow jersey of my career, it’s really nice to be in that situation."
Tomorrow's stage will be a huge test for the GC contenders, with seven categorised climbs, six Category 2 on the way to the Cat. 1 finishing climb in Chirobles. Winner of yesterday's stage, Sam Bennett, hopes to make it through to nab another win on Thursday.
I was just trying to make the time limit and save the legs for another day," said the green jersey about today's TT. "I did not want to waste some energy here. Now I will get through tomorrow and try to win Thursday, as I was disappointed not to be up there yesterday. I looked where the sprints are tomorrow and they're on climbs so it won't be doable. For now, it's just trying to go through the next stage and we'll see. But the green jersey is not an objective for the moment."\n
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