Paris-Nice commences Sunday as the third WorldTour stage race of the season and the hype has been underway for a battle of two from the ‘Big Four’, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Evenepoel makes his debut at Paris-Nice, which is considered the first important stage race of the season, while Roglič returns after a year’s absence and looks for a second GC title, adding to his 2022 success. This year both may be looking beyond the finish line in Nice, however, as the eight-day race serves to preview terrain that will be used for the final stages of the Tour de France come July.
“I want to win a stage and be up there in the general classification. I look forward to racing France for the first time,” Evenepoel said about his first stage race in the country to a gathering of journalists via an online interview, including Cyclingnews.
“It’s more a big test, not necessarily against Primož, but more to race in France. It’s going to be the first time to do proper racing in France, so for me that’s going to be the biggest – I’m not going to call it a challenge – but experience of this week.”
The 24-year-old raced only three previous occasions in France in his stellar career, and all three times at Chrono des Nations, where he won as a junior in 2018 and was runner-up last year. The 2022 Vuelta a Espana champion makes his debut at the Tour de France this summer.
“A good GC would be nice, so finishing second or even third would still count as a success and give me a big morale boost. There will be a couple of answers after the race, but at the same time it will be too early to draw any important conclusions. These should come only after the Critérium du Dauphiné. But it’s only March now, so all my focus is on Paris-Nice, where together with the Soudal-QuickStep boys I hope to do a good race.”
While the press event was happening, another of Evenepoel’s rivals, Tadej Pogačar, was going on to a dominant win at Strade Bianche. He said he did follow what his rivals were doing, as a spectator and as a fan, since the UAE Team Emirates rider was expected to race at The Tour as well.
“It’s not a lie that I that I follow them. I think it’s going to be one of the few main characters in the upcoming Tour and just for the whole season. You like to watch them and then I’m one of the lucky guys that can race against them. Or, unlucky guys, maybe,” Evenepoel joked.
“It’s very special what they do. It…
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