2024 Paris-Nice Stage 2 Results & Recap
Stage 2 of the 2024 Paris-Nice is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Arvid de Kleijn blasts to victory on stage 2
Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor) won stage two of Paris-Nice after a bunch gallop into Montargis saw the Tudor rider upset the favorites. Laurence Pithie claimed second and Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen (Team AlUla) was third on a calm 179km day that seemed destined for a sprint.
"It’s super nice," De Kleijn said. "I was chasing this victory for a long period of time. I’m really happy how the team performed today. We stayed calm and waited for the right time to go, they did a great job today. We went to the front with 1.7 km to go and it was an amazing pull by Matteo Trentin, then I had two Dutchies in front of me. They knew what to do, they kept me to the front. At 200 m to go Maikel opened up a gap, I went into it and sprinted all out to the line and it’s great. It’s a super nice feeling. I showed I was in good sprint shape in UAE, when I was three times second and here again, it’s a big sprinters field but we showed what are capable of doing.”
Pithie is now in the race lead, taking the yellow and white jersey off the back of from Dutchman Olav Kooij who wasn't a factor in the sprint.
“I was definitely not expecting it this morning but it’s very nice to wear the yellow jersey in a race like this," Pithie said. "You’re always fighting for the stage win. It’s a bit disappointing not to have won it but De Kleijn was super fast and he had a fantastic lead-out. I was able to follow the Tudor train and it was the right one to follow. It’s definitely surprising as it’s my first World Tour stage race in Europe and I take each day as an experience. It’s great for the future. Now I’m looking forward to help our leader David Gaudu. Tomorrow is a really hard day but we’ll try to keep the jersey and do a good team work for David. We’ll be starting last so we’ll be able to see what the other teams are doing and try to learn from it.”
Mathieu Burgaudeau took the KOM lead from Jonas Rutsch (EF-Easypost) today in the fight for the polka dots.
"I already wanted to take the polka dot jersey in yesterday's stage but I didn't succeed," Burgaudeau said. "So I wanted to try again today and it didn't work on the first climb. On this stage the sprints were quite flat at the end of the climbs, so that didn't suit me as well. But on the second climb I was led-out by Pierre and that made it much easier for me to win the polka dot jersey. After that, Rutsch didn't want to keep puslling so I told him "if you don't want to pull, I won't either". In the end it wasn't too bad. The objective now is to stay on the attack and seize opportunities. Then the polka-dot jersey will come as a bonus, if ever I have good legs on the climbs".
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