Lap of honour for Roglic?

March 14 ^th 2021 - 05:28

Primoz Roglic knows better than anyone that a stage race is not over before it is over yet his domination in Paris-Nice for the past week has been such that it would take a tragic turn of events or a formidable feat by his opponents to topple the Slovenian from the lead. Paris-Nice has often been decided by a few seconds on the last day – notably in 2016, 2017 and 2018 when Geraint Thomas, Sergio Henao and Marc Soler won by less than four seconds – but the Tour de France runner-up’s lead of 52 seconds seems ample enough to prevent a last-minute overthrow. Titleholder Maximilian Schachmann will probably ask his Bora-Hansgrohe team-mates to toughen the race while Astana have several trumps up their sleeve with third-placed Aleksandr Vlasov and fourth-placed Ion Izagirre both bidding for a podium finish. But it remains doubtful to expect them to do in the last 92.7 km of the Race to the Sun what they failed to achieve so far. With his three stage wins, Roglic already joined a select club of Paris-Nice specialists on his first visit, the last one to have done so well being Tom Boonen in 2006. The two-times Vuelta winner has been so impressive all week that it would not be too much of a surprise to see him seal his triumph with a fourth stage victory in Levens, a feat only achieved by Eddy Merckx in 1970, Freddy Maertens in 1976 and 1977 and Sean Kelly in 1982, 1986 and 1987.