3 minute read
Primoz Roglic has taken control of the Paris-Nice race with a brilliant fourth stage victory as Lucas Hamilton moved into contention as the leading Australian.
Vuelta a Espana champion Primoz Roglic has grabbed the leader's yellow jersey in the Paris-Nice race by winning the fourth stage as Australian Michael Matthews' bid to win back the yellow jersey was blown away by the brilliant Slovenian.
Roglic showed why he is ranked the world's No.1 road racer as he demolished the field over the final difficult three-kilometre ascent of a 188km hilly ride between Chalon-sur-Saone and Chiroubles on Wednesday.
Matthews, of the Australian outfit Team BikeExchange, who had seized the yellow jersey after the second stage before losing it during Tuesday's time trial, made a bold effort to chase after Roglic and grab bonus seconds but it was all in vain as he leaked a lot of time.
Yet others in the pursuing pack, including Matthews' teammate Lucas Hamilton, did well to eventually limit the deficit to 12 seconds after Roglic had flown like the ski jumper he used to be.
Hamilton, in his first major international outing of the year, was happy with his sixth place finish on the first mountain stage as it moved him up to eighth in the general classification, a minute and 19 seconds behind the overall leader Roglic.
"It was a good day for the team, it was quite a hard day and we had two of us there in the final, right up until one kilometre to go," said Hamilton.
"We would have preferred to win of course but Roglic saw a good opportunity and he is one of the strongest bike riders in the world, so there was not much we could do then.
"When a guy like that gets a small gap it is very hard to bring him back. We did what we could."
Last year's winner Maximilian Schachmann, of Germany, eventually took second on the stage and is now also second overall, 35 seconds adrift.
One of the race favourites, Tao Geoghegan Hart had to abandon the race after crashing in the descent from the Mont Brouilly some 15 kilometres from the finish.
It meant more misfortune for his Ineos Grenadiers team, who had also lost their Australian leader Richie Porte in an accident in Sunday's opening stage.
Behind Hamilton, the best of the other Australians are 13th-placed Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), 1:15 behind, and 16th-placed Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroen), 1:36 in arrears.
West Australian Jai Hindley, who finished just behind Geoghegan Hart in the Giro, lost 53 seconds to Roglic, leaving him 26th overall, two minutes and two seconds behind, while Matthews has now slipped to 30th place
Thursday's fifth stage takes the peloton over 200 kilometres from Vienne to Bollene.
