The Dutchman Arvid de Kleijn offered the first victory of the season to his Tudor team by winning the second stage of Paris-Nice in a sprint on Monday in Montargis where the New Zealander Laurence Pithie took the leader’s yellow jersey.
A few days before his thirtieth birthday, the sprinter of the Swiss team gave himself a magnificent gift a little early with this twelfth victory, the first at this level, at the end of an impressive mass sprint of mastery. Well led by his teammates, including Italian veteran Matteo Trentin, he beat New Zealander Laurence Pithie, who took the yellow jersey after having already taken third place during the first stage.
The winner of the day before, Olav Kooij, another Dutchman, was not present in a chaotic finale, even without a fall, with a succession of waves that would give you a cold sweat, after an otherwise calm day. “I had been close to victory several times this season,” commented De Kleijn, author of four second places in 2024. “It’s great to win here. This is my first victory in a World Tour race, the best of my career. I’ve been waiting for this for years,” he commented.
At 1.71 m tall, De Kleijn is, as his name suggests, not the tallest of sprinters. Nor “the youngest”, as he recalled, especially given the standards of precocity now in force in the peloton. “I’m a slowly maturing runner, that’s for sure. I also had knee problems that left me sidelined for a year. But I continue to progress, just like the team,” he insisted. For the ambitious Tudor team, which is currently sailing in the second division and has been invited to this Paris-Nice, this success comes as a blessing.
“It’s super important for the team, it’s the first success of the year and it comes in a very exciting race,” said Matteo Trentin, three-time stage winner on the Tour de France whose Experience and power were essential in the final packaging. “Matteo knew exactly what had to be done, he told us this morning which side we had to take. During the sprint he told us to stay calm and he took me to a chair,” De Kleijn thanked him. Another sprinter was smiling along the canals of Montargis, “the Venice of Gâtinais”: the New Zealander Laurence Pithie of the Groupama-FDJ team who is, at 21, one of the most promising young sprinters in the platoon.
“I didn’t expect to wear the yellow jersey here, it’s pretty cool,” he explained after having taken a few seconds to realize that he was going to put on the leader’s tunic, with all the best places. , tied for time with the Dutchman Olav Kooij and the Dane Mads Pedersen. The third stage on Tuesday will offer the first major meeting for the general classification of “the race to the sun” with a 26.9 km team time trial in Auxerre on a rather demanding and technical course.
The opportunity for the big armadas to open up a first gap, whether it is the Soudal-Quick Step team of world chrono champion Remco Evenepoel, the Bora-Hansgrohe team of Olympic champion Primoz Roglic or Ineos of Egan Bernal. Like last year, the time will be taken on the first rider crossing the line (against the usual third), an originality of the organizers inaugurated in 2023 in Dampierre-en-Burly where the Jumbo-Visma team of Jonas Vingegaard is was imposed.
