The WorldTour returns with Paris-Nice, the Race to the Sun

Sunday marks a return to the WorldTour calendar with start of the 73rd Paris-Nice, the Race to the Sun. It’s the first WorldTour race since the Tour Down Under in January and kicks off a busy spring for the ProTour riders.

The traditional north-to-south race is bookended with two short time trials: a flat 6.7-km chrono in Maurepas on Sunday and a 9.6-km uphill time trial scaling the Col d’Eze seven days later. Stages 4 and 6 are mountain stages, but only Stage 4’s final ascent of the Cat. 1 Croix de Chaubouret is a summit finish.

It’s the first time the Croix de Chaubouret near Saint Etienne has been used. Course designer François Lemarchand talked about the difficulty in selecting climbs for the race: “The geography of France is very restrictive for us. The Alps and the Pyrenees are out of bounds at this time of year, as is most of the Massif Central, whereas the Vosges are further north and therefore exposed to even more difficult conditions. In our favour, we know that the hills and mountains behind Nice give us a lot of very varied options on the last weekend.”

Last year’s double stage winner and champion Carlos Betancur (Colombia/Ag2r) won’t be in France to defend his yellow jersey, but most of 2014’s central cast are back, including eight of the top 10 on GC, led by runner-up Rui Costa (Portugal/Lampre). Five of last season’s stage winners return as well. There are also four former winners slated to start: Sky’s Richie Porte (Australia) and Bradley Wiggins (Great Britain), German Tony Martin of Etixx-QuickStep and LL Sanchez (Spain/Astana).

Porte has had a strong start to the season, coming runner-up to compatriot Rohan Dennis (BMC) in the Tour Down Under by two seconds before placing fourth at the Volta ao Algarve. Dennis will be a threat in the opening time trial and his American teammate Tejay Van Garderen will hope to turn his second place in the Tour of Oman into Paris-Tour success.

Instead of Betancur, Ag2r is sending its Gallic one-two punch from last year’s Tour de France–6th place Romain Bardet and runner-up Jean-Christophe Péraud. While Péraud has been warning anyone within earshot that he’s not up to form yet, he told the Paris-Nice organizers, “I’m hoping that my condition will improve stage by stage, and that I’ll be able to do something decent towards the end of the week. I’ve always loved the Col d’Eze time trial. It’s right up my street-a solitary effort, uphill.”

Other GC riders to watch are world champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland/Etixx), Fabio Aru (Italy/Astana) and American Andrew Talansky of Cannondale-Garmin.

There will be a few opportunities for sprinters too. John Degenkolb (Germany/Giant-Alpecin) returns to defend his green points jersey, though his countryman André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) would like to nick it away. Nacer Bouhanni (France/Cofidis) is looking for his first win of the season, as is his rival Arnaud Démare (France/FDJ). Alexander Kristoff (Norway/Katusha) won three stages of the Tour of Qatar, one of the Tour of Oman and came runner-up at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.

Canadian Christian Meier lines up for Orica-GreenEdge while Dominique Rollin continues his busy comeback season with the Cofidis squad. Antoine Duchesne is part of a strong Europcar team that should send someone up the road in most of the breakaways.