McNulty takes Paris-Nice lead as 'Race to the Sun' heads for snow
American Brandon McNulty took the overall lead of cycling's Paris-Nice in the scenic low Alps on Friday as his escape partner Mattias Skjelmose won hilly stage six.
A youthful trio of Team UAE's McNulty, another American Matteo Jorgenson of Visma and Lidl-Trek's Skjelmose, escaped from the elite riders and worked hard together to achieve a surprise victory.
"That was a really hard final 50km, and I never expected to take the yellow jersey," said McNulty. "But it was like we were teammates."
Pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel led the chasing group across the line 52sec later and remains in fifth.
Known as the 'Race to the Sun', as it leaves the cooler north towards the Riviera town of Nice, 139 riders embarked from Sisteron for the 198km run over five hills of around 1000m altitude with around 30km of climbing.
Santiago Buitrago, second overall on Friday morning, lost all his chances of an overall win in a fall on a cold day with a wet road.
The winning trio attacked on the final hill but the action really heated up on the final downhill dash with the three escapees extending their lead racing to La Colle sur Loup.
Danish champion Skjelmose made his sprint from 400m out with McNulty edging his compatriot Jorgenson.
"I feel better than when I won the Tour de Suisse last year and I think I'm in a good place right now," said the Dane.
Overall leader McNulty faces two tough mountain stages over the weekend, but goes into it as the man to beat leading Jorgenson by 23sec.
Big guns Evenepoel and Egan Bernal are at 1min 03sec and 1min 14sec respectively.
The weather is set to take a turn for the worse for the penultimate stage on Saturday with snow forecast at the finish line in Auron.
Race organisers have shortened the stage to 104km and reduced its level of difficulty slightly, albeit retaining a final 15.3km climb with a 5.7% average gradient.
"It's the right decision, it risked being too dangerous and too extreme," commented Evenepoel, who said he "suffers in cold and wet conditions" but could benefit from the smoother profile of the climb.
K.Marshall--EWJ
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