Primož Roglic loses Paris-Nice on final stage after double crash

Primoz Roglic lost Paris-Nice after crashing twice on the final stage, Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) went on to win the overall race

Incredible drama and bike racing on the re-routed final stage of Paris-Nice, the same time last year the whole globe effectively went into a full lockdown.

In unbeleivable scenes, Roglic fell once but got back into the peloton before he was suddenly caught on the wrong end of a split in a bunch as his rivals put the hammer down and his teammates struggled to reach the teamleader and pace him back into the race.

A second crash nearly ripped off his shorts and cost him dearly as Bora-Hansgrohe turned the thumbscrews for Max Schachmann, leaving Roglic alone, behind and isolated form his team, to defend his title. 

German Schachmann started the day 52 seconds behind but after 90km of racing found himself in the virtual yellow jersey, Roglic limited his loses to three minutes, even dropping out of the top 10.

Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) won the final stage sprint stage, from a greatly reduced bunch, holding off Christophe Laporte on the line.

Teammate Steven Kruijswijk said at the finish, "He crashed on the last time of the downhill, on one of last corners, and he couldn’t get the chain back on, so he got a little caught up behind, and in the front of course they started pulling, There was a lot of wind in the valley, and with only three or four of us, we couldn’t’ close the gap. We tried to close it as fast as possible but weren’t able to get back."

"After the first crash, where he went down pretty hard, we got him back in the front and tried to take control of race. The last crash was really out of the blue, otherwise we could have kept the jersey I think. It’s shit for him. He fought until the end. If you see how he showed himself the past week, he was the strongest in the race, but anything can happen until the last day."

More to follow shortly ...

VIDEO: 2021 Paris-Nice Stage 8 Finale

2021 Paris-Nice Stage 8 Top 10

1 Magnus Cort (Den) EF Education-Nippo 02:16:58
2 Christophe Laporte (Fra) Cofidis
3 Pierre Latour (Fra) Total Direct Energie
4 Dylan Teuns (Bel) Bahrain Victorious
5 Warren Barguil (Fra) Team Arkea-Samsic
6 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Ineos Grenadiers
7 Ion Izagirre Insausti (Spa) Astana-Premier Tech
8 Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Movistar Team
9 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Deceuninck-QuickStep
10 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe

2021 Paris-Nice Final Overall GC

1 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 28:49:51
2 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana-Premier Tech 00:00:19
3 Ion Izagirre Insausti (Spa) Astana-Premier Tech 00:00:23
4 Lucas Hamilton (Aus) Team BikeExchange 00:00:41
5 Tiesj Benoot (Bel) Team DSM 00:00:42
6 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis 00:01:14
7 Jack Haig (Aus) Bahrain Victorious 00:01:18
8 Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Movistar Team 00:01:29
9 Aurélien Paret Peintre (Fra) AG2R Citroën Team 00:01:31
10 Gino Mäder (Swi) Bahrain Victorious 00:01:32