“Was Remco Evenepoel the other big winner of stage 4 of Paris-Nice?” Belgian newspaper Dernière Heure speculated in its race analysis of Wednesday’s dramatic events in the Course au Soleil. After the way Evenepoel’s team handled the terrible race conditions on Wednesday, claiming three of the four top spots on the stage, it would be hard to disagree.
Whilst Evenepoel continues his altitude training camp in the Canaries, 2,000 kilometres further north, Red Bull started off their day in Paris-Nice as the best-represented squad in the 40-strong echelon that formed in the opening kilometres of the mountainous stage.
Six of their seven riders were present in the stage-defining opening move – only former Paris-Nice podium finisher Aleksandr Vlasov failed to make the cut. Then even more importantly for the final result, a hefty majority – Nico Denz, Dani Martínez, the Van Dijke twins, Mick and Tim, and 22-year-old Briton Calum Thornley – were all on the right side of the big crash, which saw race leader Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), amongst others, forced to quit.
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On a memorably appalling day of multiple crashes, mass abandons – the Paris-Nice peloton lost 15 riders in total on stage 4 – and weather so atrocious just finishing the stage was an achievement in itself, Vingegaard finally took the win.
But the three equally bedraggled figures that crossed the rain-soaked finish line after him were all Red Bull racers, starting with team co-leader Dani Martínez, 41 seconds down, and then followed by Tim and Mick van Dijke in third and fourth.
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