It’s a full Final Kilometre round up today, so let’s just get straight down to it.

Paris-Nice, Stage 6, Nice to La Madone d’Utelle, 177km.

Seven categorised climbs on the queen stage and it all came down to four riders on the final ascent of the La Madone d’Utelle. Baby Blackbird (Tinkoff) tried several times to dance the other three loose, but it was the ‘Iceman’ Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) who found the extra speed to take the stage win. Geraint ‘G’  Thomas (Sky) raced for second with Alberto Contador rounding out the podium. Thomas takes the leaders’s jersey with 15secs in hand on Contador, and a 20secs on Zakarin.

Grumpy Cat’s Antoine Duchesne was out in the break AGAIN and is now all spotted! It appears he has two nicknames Tony the Tiger and Le Caribou… we shall investigate.

Love the angle on this shot…

Quick recap of the day (in French)…

Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 4, Montalto di Castro to Foligno, 216km

In a crazy, uncontrollable finish, Steve Cummings (Dimension Data) attacked out of a small group with 3km to go and then just pedalled like crazy to take a superb win. 13secs later his fellow escapees appeared with Salvatore Puccio (Sky) taking second in front of  Natnael Berhane (Dimension Data). Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quick Step) retains the lead from three BMC riders at 9secs. With the Stage 5’s day in the mountains cancelled due to snow, can Styby hang on?

That’s how to dress for a podium! (Image via race website)

Highlight’s here…

Women’s WorldTour Ronde van Drenthe, Hoogeveen to Hoogeveen, 138.3km

Round two of the Womens’s World Tour saw  Chantal Blaak (Boels-Dolmans) take victory after a fantastic fight by four riders over the cobbles. Gracie Elvin (Orica-AIS) placed second, with Canyon-SRam’s  Trixie Worrack third. However, it was fourth placed Anna van der Breggen (Rabo-Liv) who takes the WWT leader’s jersey from Lizzie Armitstead (Boels Dolmans), who had to retire from the race.

Check out the Boels-Dolmans Twitter account for great reactions.

Plushie love for Gracie…

Full race here, skip to about 1:40 for final kilometre…

Links: 

Official site for Paris-Nice, Twitter #ParisNice

Official site for Tirreno-Adriatico, Twitter #Tirreno

Official Site for Ronde van Drenthe

Featured Image: Chantal Blaak all smiles after victory at WWT Ronde van Drenthe