Cycling: Paris-Nice: Soler snatches away victory for Yates

The Spanish professional cyclist Marc Soler (Team Movistar) has won the long-distance trip Paris-Nice. With third place on the hilly eighth and last leg around Nice (110 km) the 24-year-old still snatched the lead from the British rider Simon Yates and celebrated his first victory in one of the big WorldTour races with a four-second lead.

During the ascent and descent on the Cote d’ Azur, Soler had attacked early on and lost Yates. The victory of the Spaniard David de la Cruz (Team Sky) saw the winner of the 2017 Tour de France junior standings, 38 seconds behind the winner of the Tour de France, finish 38 seconds behind – too much to successfully defend the yellow jersey. The Spanish Izagirre brothers Gorka (+0:14 seconds) and Ion (+0:16) from Team Bahrain-Merida finished third and fourth in the overall standings.

From a German point of view, the 76. The second edition of the prestigious long-distance trip is divided into two parts. John Degenkolb (Gera/Trek-Segafredo) had risen from the bike after disappointing results in the first stages tailored to him before the sixth leg with symptoms of bronchitis and has to fear for his form before his first season highlight at Milan – Sanremo next Saturday.

Nils Politt (Cologne/Katusha-Alpecin) caused a sensation, who only just missed his first career victory as second on the fifth leg. Top sprinter Andre Greipel (Rostock/Lotto-Soudal) also finished third on two stages. At the last stage Politt did not start again, Greipel climbed during the last section of the bike.