Paris-Nice 2023: Mads Pedersen wins messy sprint on Stage 2, Tadej Pogacar grabs more bonus seconds

Mads Pedersen (Trek–Segafredo) won a chaotic sprint finish in the second stage of Paris-Nice from Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) and also took the overall lead of the race. Tim Merlier (Soudal–Quick-Step) was the big favourite to make it back-to-back stage wins but a crash with 1km remaining split the peloton up. Ad The top 10 were all closely congested at the finish line as Pedersen powered past Kooij, with Magnus Cort Nielsen (EF Education–EasyPost) third and Dan McLay (Arkea–Samsic) in fourth.

Vuelta a EspañaPedersen lands hat-trick as Wright falls just short on Stage 1909/09/2022 AT 15:43 “This is nice to start the season well,” said Pedersen. “Paris-Nice is a really nice race so of course it’s nice to get a win. “It was really hectic.

We had 10km full straight and a roundabout at the end but the team did well to keep me out of problems. It was tight at the end but I’m happy that I got it." For the second day running, Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X) was in the breakaway, except this time he was by himself. Crosswinds caused a minor split in the peloton with 75km to go, but the bunch came back together and caught Greggard with 54km remaining.