Paris-Nice 2026 - Stage 3 - Extended Highlights

After a couple of sprints which have thrown up some surprise winners in Luke Lampertie and Max Kanter, it is time for the team time trial on stage three of Paris-Nice. This is the fourth straight edition of the race with the TTT and in 2023 and 2025 victory went to Visma-Lisebike. The Dutch squad enjoyed this exercise and they are hoping to put Jonas Vingegaard into a strong overall position today. The course isn't very demanding so it will come down to little details. Being able to go fast and stay together, it should suit us. We work a lot on the team time trial. Obviously there are other very strong teams but we are not unhappy to have a TTT. Two years ago, UAE Team Emirates took victory in Auxerre with a squad featuring their leader Brandon McNulty. The American was the last minute call-up this year after Joao Almeida fell ill. Honestly I haven't seen it yet. The team came and did recon because I was called late. I came in a day later so I've only seen it on paper. It looks like it has a little climb at the finish but I'll try to do GC. Obviously Jonas and Juan are super good and probably a bit better but I'll give my best for the GC. Another GC favourite is Juan Ayuso who took four bonus seconds yesterday. The Spaniard has already won the Tour of the Algarve with his new team Lidl Trek and says they have what it takes to win today. Obviously the first time I do it with a new team but we've practised quite a lot over the winter and also we came here before to also do one training more altogether. So I think we have quite a bit of chemistry and I hope we can show it and display it and I think we have a really good team to try and go for the win. Twenty-three and a half kilometres on a rolling course just east of the Loire River. It is a first-past-the-post format so the first man over the line sets the time for his team. Tactics and legs will play a big part in terms of when the domestiques drop off. While Picnic Postenel were the first to roll down the start ramp at ten past three local time, the teams would be setting off at four minute intervals and hoping to stay together for as long as possible. As Axel Zingle said there were so many little details involved in a successful TTT and the big teams have all been working on the discipline ahead of this year's Tour de France which starts with a team time trial around Barcelona on July the 4th. Each rider today then would be given their actual time and it's no longer necessary to have four men at the finish. Jacob Alula going much quicker than Picnic at the first checkpoint after 14k with a couple of the big stage favourites among the first teams to get underway. Next up it's the winners of this team time trial from a year ago is Wismar Lisebæk looking for another team time trial victory. Victor Campenaerts the former European time trial champion leads off first. Well meanwhile UAE Team Emirates were looking to launch McNulty a talented time trialist with six individual career wins in this discipline. Their riders just falling away one by one. Picnic were the first team to finish in 28 minutes 19 seconds. Rapidly knocked off top spot though by Jacob Alula who were over 40 seconds quicker. UAE arriving with just McNulty and Marc Soler but that didn't stop them taking the fastest time from Groupama FDJ United who had meanwhile gone quicker than Jacob Alula. All eyes were now on Wismar Lisebæk who still had four riders as they embarked on the final kilometre. Victor Campenaerts putting in a final turn for Vingegaard who also had the French champion Bruno Amirai and talented young Italian Davide Piganzoli for company. Vingegaard racing to the line as the Dutch team went top of the pile. And this is going to be an exceptional performance from Wismar Lisebæk that puts them straight into first place currently 26.55 an average speed of 52.4 kilometres per hour. Well Decathlon CMA CGM adopted a very different strategy of launching Dan Holler solo on the final climb but despite having almost five kilometres to cover on his own the Dutch champion was on an absolute flyer. Dan Holler comes to the line it's Decathlon CMA CGM who go fastest. And then were you a bit scared to be alone in the final? No because we knew it was fast and I mean if you have to swap off from the front and get back into a wheel at 70 is quite difficult. So yeah we used the guys before and then it was just me to bring it home. A sensational performance from Holler but other teams were eyeing up that stage win notably Lidl Trek and the Ineos Grenadiers while the last to go were EF Education Easypost with their race leader Lamperti. The American one of the first men in pink to drop and saying goodbye to that yellow and white jersey. Well the battle for the stage honours was raging with Lidl Trek going a few seconds quicker than Decathlon at the intermediate checkpoint. A few minutes later Ineos improved that mark by 13 seconds at a blistering average of 54.8 kilometres an hour. Are you so sprinting to the finish line after being led out by Matthias Vacek and putting Lidl Trek on top by nine seconds. But the Ineos train was soon storming into the station led by the Josh Tarling Express. He had Kevin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley in his slipstream. Vauquelin making a dash for the line but could he overhaul Ayuso for yellow and white. Time is still green and will he reach the finish line in time to give the Ineos Grenadiers the stage victory. They do and the Ineos Grenadiers go fastest by 2.4 seconds. A time of 26 minutes and 40 seconds. Ineos claiming their first victory in a TTT since the Tour of Britain 2021. Yesterday they also locked out three of the top four positions in the individual time trial at Torino Adriatico. They have clearly done excellent work against the clock over the winter. Vauquelin and Onley are now second and third overall. I was impatient to try out a TTT with Ineos. I knew it could be good for us and today everything worked out well. I'm happy that we could show all the work that we've done on time trials. We did well in the Algarve and on Torino yesterday. Now the TTT here so we're on a brilliant run. A stellar effort from Onley, Godin, Kwiatkowski, Rodriguez, Tarling, Vauquelin and Watson as Ineos won by just two seconds from Lidl Trek. Decathlon, Visma and Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe completed the top five. No stage win for Lidl Trek but Ayuso is our new race leader thanks to the bonus seconds he snaffled yesterday. The Spaniard leads Vauquelin by two seconds and Onley by three. There were no points handed out today so Luke Lamperti remains in the green jersey and he'll actually get an opportunity to wear it in Wednesday's fourth stage. Kasper Pedersen is still on top in the mountains classification, the dame with a four-point advantage over Mathis Le Baire. And there's also been a change of white jersey. Ayuso is now the best young rider ahead of Vauquelin and Onley. All those boys will get a chance to stretch their climbing legs in tomorrow's fourth stage which features a summit finish on Auchan. Join us for that on Wednesday and thanks for watching.