Vingegaard Critical of Nice: 'We Shouldn't Have Continued to Race'

Jonas Vingegaard has taken the overall lead in Paris-Nice, but he is not at all satisfied with the way the fourth stage unfolded, marked by extreme weather conditions that forced the organizers to neutralize the race in the final 50 kilometers.

Snow and heavy rain made it necessary for the marshals to intervene, stopping the race before guiding the peloton neutrally until 28.8 km from the finish, when the green light was given again for hostilities.

" I have mixed feelings, or rather I'm not happy at all at the moment ," said Vingegaard after the finish.

" In my opinion we should never have rushed this finale, nor resumed when we did ."

Conditions were so harsh that several riders were shivering, with Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) even having to cling to a motorbike to try to warm his hands before the restart. One TotalEnergies rider, Steff Cras, was forced to retire due to hypothermia.

"We rode more than 10-12 km downhill going very slowly, everyone was frozen. No one could feel the brakes."

"They gave us 5-10 minutes to warm up, but it wasn't enough. I myself haven't recovered my body heat yet, I'm still cold."

Despite the difficulties, Vingegaard attacked at the end with 2 km to go, but was overtaken in the last 25 meters by João Almeida who took the stage victory. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider still maintains the overall lead with 5 seconds on his teammate Jorgenson and 37 on Almeida.