Organisers cancelled the third stage of Paris-Nice after around 100 kilometres due to snow. The riders began the day in rain and 3°C temperatures and faced snow halfway in.

The cancellation was “a good decision”, said Team LottoNL-Jumbo’s sports director Frans Maassen. “Everyone agreed with this decision.”  

During the long climb to the feed zone, it began to snow. After the already tough start, the riders’ safety became a concern. 

“This is of course annoying for the organisation and everyone who has been working on this stage, but there was nothing to do about it. We heard that the riders could stop riding bikes and it took ten minutes to cancel the stage officially afterwards. It would have been a chaos if they had to get back on their bikes in that weather, so it’s good that the stage ended this way.”

Transition stage
All they could do was look forward to Thursday’s stage. “Tomorrow, there’s another transition stage on the programme,” Maassen added. “It’ll be easier than today’s was supposed to be and it doesn’t have an uphill finish either. The riders will have to cross a second category climb with 30 kilometres to go. I imagine that a breakaway has a chance. We have to be sharp.”