Paris-Nice Stage 3 Preview 🇫🇷 🚴‍♂️

A Team Time Trial for stage 3 of Paris-Nice this year for the third year running. It's a key stage for the general classification contenders and their teams.

Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours - Nevers - 28.4km (TTT - Team Time Trial)

The Route

Stage 3 Profile (Image Credit: Paris-nice.fr)

This year’s time trial in Paris-Nice begins on the Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours, which was home to the French Grand Prix in Formula One from 1991 until 2008. It currently serves host to a round of the Superbike World Championship, GT World Challenge Europe and the FFSA GT Championship. The riders of Paris-Nice won’t be hitting speeds quite as quick, but they are expected to fly around this time-trial in cycling terms at least.

Not least because the Paris-Nice organisers decided to make this a Team Time Trial, for the third consecutive year. Hence why the likes of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the INEOS Grenadiers among others, have brought rouleur-heavy squads to the race. With a total elevation of 201 metres, it’s going to be a very fast stage as the riders will be wanting to produce a controlled, but all-out effort over the 28.4 kilometres en route.

A stage of Paris-Nice finished on the circuit back in 2014, where John Degenkolb won the sprint finish, a few weeks before winning Gent-Wevelgem and finishing 2nd at Paris-Roubaix. This illustrates that strong performances at Paris-Nice can be a solid indication of which riders are in form ahead of the major classics.

Several stages of Paris-Nice in the 90s finished in the town of Nevers, with Mario Cipollini winning stages in 1992 and 1993 here. It has been a while since Nevers last featured as a host town of a Paris-Nice stage, as we have to go back to 2014, where Dutchman Tom Jelte Slagter beat Geraint Thomas in a sprint à deux, after attacking on the final climb of the day.

Back to this year’s race, and at 28.4 kilometres, it’s a good length of time trial for riders to be able to build into their effort, but equally short enough for the riders to push it to their limits and leave everything out on the course.

A key point to note is that times for the general classification will be taken on each individual rider, meaning that teams will be able to use their rouleurs to the absolute limit as they don’t necessarily need to cross the line for the GC sense. However, with a downhill finale, it will still be handy to have a few bigger riders keeping the speeds high for the general classification leader.

There’s a time check at 14.5 kilometres, around the halfway point at La Chaume des Pendus, half-way down a shallow descent following a short climb, and it is at this point that the teams will have a solid indication of how they are faring.

With around five kilometres to go, the riders will climb 900 metres at 5.6% up the Côte de la Pisserotte where we will no doubt see plenty of teammates drop off from the time-trial trains after giving it their all. There are pitches of 11% up this climb which will sting the legs of many. This could be a key part of the time-trial and consequently it is important to save enough in the tank to push hard on and over the top of the climb. The final 4.5 kilometres are mostly on a false-flat descent into the town of Nevers.

Contenders

There are plenty of contenders for this Team Time Trial on stage three of Paris-Nice, and they mostly consist of teams who have general classification contenders.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike have the two main contenders for the general classification: Jonas Vingegaard and defending champion Matteo Jorgenson. Both are great time trialists. They are surrounded by some specialists, no less than the current and 2x former European time trial champion in Edoardo Affini and Victor Campenaerts respectively.

Last year’s TTT winners were UAE Team Emirates-XRG who have Brandon McNulty and João Almeida among their ranks. It’s arguably not as strong a squad for this discipline as last year, but there are still some very strong teammates such as Nils Politt, Pavel Sivakov and Jhonatan Narváez.

Lidl-Trek have already won a TTT in 2025 at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, and have a strong squad who will be rallying around Mattias Skjelmose. Team Jayco AlUla are often strong in this discipline too, and will be hoping to place Ben O’Connor in a favourable GC position.

In years gone by, INEOS Grenadiers have also been one of the strongest in the Time Trial discipline and look very well placed ahead of this TTT. With the likes of Josh Tarling, Magnus Sheffield and former ITT world champion, Tobias Foss in their line-up, they will be a tough team to beat. Tarling in particular has looked in great shape in 2025 so far.

Soudal-Quick Step are likely to be in the mix, but I think some teams are better suited to this time-trial. Therefore, there is a good chance that Tim Merlier will lose the Maillot Jaune, but the team will certainly give it their all to keep the Belgian in yellow, and place Ilan Van Wilder in a good GC position.

Other teams who will be aiming to perform well in this TTT for their GC leaders include Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, Bahrain Victorious, and Movistar Team. The Spanish team could fly under the radar, but they have a super strong team for a TTT with the likes of Iván Romeo, Will Barta, and former under 23 ITT world champion in Lorenzo Milesi.

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Thanks for reading!

Joe