The weather gods stayed on the sunny side, Tommy Voeckler made the break, and both our winners graduated from recent losses to superb victories. What more could a cycling fan ask for?

Paris-Nice, Stage 4, Juliénas to Romans-sur-Isère, 193.5km

The sun finally shone at Paris-Nice and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) finally claimed a victory at the third time of asking. As a late break were reeled in with 500m to go, his team placed him perfectly to nip around Trek Segafredo’s Edward Theuns on the run to the line. Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal FixAll) rounded out the podium. Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) finished fifth and retains the lead.

Day made for this young Movistarlet fan…

Respect…

Quick recap of the day…

Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 2, Camaiore to Pomarance, 207k

Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quickstep) launched a beautifully timed attack on the last climb and held the chasing mob at bay to take a by-the-seat-of-his-pants solo win. Tinkoff’s Peter Sagan was second (again) with Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension-Data) in third. Indeed the whole top ten would grace any spring classic you care to name. Bonifications put Zdenek into the leader’s jersey by 9secs from a phalanx of BMCers.

The Maglia Azzurra is far nicer blue than Quickstepper’s electric shade.

#IAMCoolingDown

Highlight’s here…

Links: 

Official site for Paris-Nice, Twitter #ParisNice

Official site for Tirreno-Adriatico, Twitter #Tirreno

Featured Image: Peloton colours in the sunshine at Paris-Nice © G.Demouveaux (via race website)