France’s Godon wins chaotic Paris-Nice seventh stage, Vingegaard in control

NICE – France’s Dorian Godon won Saturday’s shortened seventh and penultimate stage of the Paris-Nice with Dane Jonas Vingegaard poised for overall victory in a race thrown into chaos because of bad weather.

On the eve of the final stage in Nice, two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard still leads the general classification with a commanding 3min 22sec advantage on Colombian Dani Martinez. 

“I never thought I’d win a mountain stage one day on Paris-Nice,” joked Godon after triumphing in what was supposed to be the queen stage of the “Race to the Sun”.

But the penultimate stage was slashed from the planned 138.7km because of too much snow at the 1600m summit that was cut out of the race.

Lashing rain on the Promenade des Anglais on Saturday morning meant organisers scratched the opening sector too.

“It was raining heavily, there were a lot of stones on the road. We absolutely couldn’t take that risk,” explained race director Yannick Talabardon. 

A snowplow had cleared the road in the medieval mountain village of Isola, where there had been snowfall in the morning. 

Even the impromptu start was chaotic, as the race’s technical director Thierry Gouvenou was nearly knocked over by the peloton. 

And a few metres later, several riders went down at a roundabout. 

During the team presentation in the downpour, many riders were reluctant to start. 

Some preferred to laugh about it with Australian Jensen Plowright arriving with a scuba diving mask on his nose and French rider Axel Zingle in socks and sandals.

The peloton breezed through just 47 kilometres albeit wrapped up in all weather gear in the Nice region usually known for balmy conditions at this time of year.

Ineos rider Godon won the sprint finish ahead of Eritrean Biniam Girmay and Dutchman Cees Bol after only an hour of racing, securing France’s first victory in this 84th edition. 

“In my opinion, we could have stopped 10 kilometres earlier, because it was very slippery at the end and we saw several crashes,” said Vingegaard. 

But that did not diminish Godon’s joy, whose only regret was not winning in the blue-white-red jersey, as he was wearing a rain jacket in his team’s colours. 

He was perfectly positioned by his team to secure the 17th victory of his career and his first with Ineos. 

“A crazy pace, I was practically on the couch,” the Frenchman laughed.

On Sunday, he said he would give “300 percent” to try and bring his leader Kevin Vauquelin, currently fourth overall, onto the podium. 

And then the 29-year-old said he would celebrate.

“Before the start of the season, I bought a bottle of wine called Satisfied. It’s at home and I wasn’t allowed to open it until I won. 

“That’s the goal now.”