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The WorldTour returns from a six-week recess with Paris-Nice

Alberto Contador, reigning champion Richie Porte, Tom Dumoulin and Romain Bardet will be looking to establish good early season form starting this Sunday when the 74th "Race to the Sun", Paris-Nice, kicks off.

Tom Dumoulin
March 3, 2016
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Alberto Contador, reigning champion Richie Porte, Tom Dumoulin and Romain Bardet will be looking to establish good early season form starting this Sunday when the 74th “Race to the Sun”, Paris-Nice, gets the WorldTour back on track after a month and a half break. Simon Gerrans (Australia/Orica-GreenEdge) won the first event, the Santos Tour Down Under, on January 24.

The eight-day race usually concludes with a short, decisive time trial from Nice up the Col d’Èze, but this year there’s only a 6.1-km prologue chrono for a race against the clock.

The parcours is a hilly one, with one uphill finish on Stage 3 that climbs 3-km, 7.7% Mont Brouilly, and a summit finish on Stage 6 that clambers up the long but moderately steep La Madone d’Utelle.

The most famous climb to appear this season is Mont Ventoux on Stage 5, but only the first half of it as far as Chalet Reynard where riders can first see the radio mast at the peak–the ascent is also early in the stage.

Challenging the traditional Col d’Èze time trial finale on March 13 is a 141-km stage that starts and ends in Nice, with six categorized climbs, including the Col d’Èze itself, peaking 15-km from the line.

There are a couple of stages that will favour the sprinters, though the fast men will have to survive dirt roads near the end of Stage 1 to battle it out. Red hot Alexander Kristoff (Norway/Katusha), Dubai Tour winner Marcel Kittel (Germany/Etixx-QuickStep) and Nacer Bouhanni (France/Cofidis) are among the riders to watch.

Contador (Spain/Tinkoff) returns to the race after five years with Rafal Majka (Poland) as his main lieutenant and a robust win on the Volta ao Algarve’s Alto do Malhão on his palmares. Contador is a two-time winner of the yellow jersey.

AG2R’s Romain Bardet showed good early season form by placing runner-up to Vincenzo Nibali at the Tour of Oman. Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) came in only two spots and 25-seconds behind Bardet and will hope to take the race lead after the prologue.

BMC’s new rider Richie Porte, two-time winner, looked great in coming second place at home in the Tour Down Under but was ordinary at the Tour of Oman.

The field has real depth, with Frenchman Pierre Rolland looking to get something going in his new Cannondale colours, Ion Izagirre (Spain/Movistar) coming off 2nd and 4th in his first two stage races of the season, 2014 runner-up Rui Costa (Portugal) and Louis Meintjes (South Africa) providing a one-two punch for Lampre, and Sergio Henao (Colombia) flying the Sky flag.

Other riders who could threaten the podium are Orica-GreenEdge’s Brit Simon Yates, Diego Rosa (Italy/Astana), Dutchman Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Simon Spilak (Slovenia/Katusha) who started a fine run of 2015 stage race placings with third in the Race to the Sun.

Direct Energie’s Antoine Duchesne is the sole Canadian entrant.