Riders had been fearing the potential effects of bad weather at Paris-Nice, but complete carnage descended on stage 4 of the French stage race, with rain, crosswinds and crashes amounting to a decimated field and a day to forget for many of the general classification-focussed teams.
Race leader Juan Ayuso was the major casualty of the carnage, with a high-speed crash on the descent of the Côte de la Croix des Cerisiers at 48km to go, leaving him writhing in pain while he lay on the side of the road. Not long after, the yellow jersey had to abandon, a big hit to his flying start to 2026.
In Aysuo's absence, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) took total control of the GC, escaping all of the chaos and getting into a leading group of five that battled out the final climb.
After surging away in the final kilometres to win solo, he now holds a 52-second lead over Red Bull's Dani Martínez in second overall, but with the rest of the field all more than three minutes down and most of the race in excess of five minutes in arrears.
GC hopefuls Iván Romeo (Movistar) and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) also came down in the same incident as the Spaniard, as did Raul García Pierna (Movistar), who abandoned with elbow pain and Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The list of riders to abandon will likely only continue to grow in the hours after the race finishes, and it's already up to 12 riders out.
Crosswinds spark early chaos
The chaos came right from the start, as the riders headed on an almost entirely eastward route out of Bourges, heavy wind blowing from north to south caused splits right from the flag, with second-place on GC Kévin Vauquelin the big name to miss out in the echelons.
Around 40 riders formed the lead group, with yellow jersey Ayuso and eventual stage winner Vingegaard both present, but the dangers were far from over as the rain continued to fall and the tricky road to Uchon continued to wind.
With many of the favourites' team represented in front, the pace was kept high, with Vauequelin and co. behind desperately chasing to try and bring things back together.
Entering the final 100km, there was an ominous crash for Ineos' other GC leader, Oscar Onley, who was left with a rip to his shorts and chased back on, but ultimately struggled in the end. Daan Hoole (Decathlon CMA CGM) also crashed and had to abandon, having started the day fourth overall. Lead-out man Bert Van Lerberghe had to pull out after crashing in the same incident.
Domestiques got dropped as the climbs towards the finale came thick and fast, with no rider free from his rainjacket and several layers to try and stave off the brutality of the cold and rain. Vingegaard even finished with bib tights over his shorts and jersey.
The crashes pile up in the rain
Soon came the major crash for the likes of Ayuso and McNulty, which completely blew the front group to pieces and left only a few Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders and Vingegaard in front to battle out victory, while those behind toiled away to try and just make it to the finish.
After Ayuso's abandon was confirmed, more climbers started to follow after subsequent crashes: Davide Piganzoli, one of Vingegaard's Visma climbing domestiques, Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), and, reportedly, McNulty.
The crashes in front may have been taken out of view from the TV motorbikes in the finale, with the aerial view unable to go up amid the terrible weather, but there is surely more to come out in the wash on a calamity of a Wednesday afternoon at Paris-Nice, and Injury updates will be commonplace on the social media pages of almost every team present at the race.
More terrible weather is expected for later in the week in the 'Race to the Sun', so this isn't the last the riders will see of the rain, snow, or indeed, the chaos of Paris-Nice racing.
The GC winners and losers
What's certain is that Vingegaard is the big winner from the day, having not only won the stage but managed to survive without major incident after injuries and illness had disrupted his start to the season.
The Dane has a 52-second lead over Martínez in second place, with Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) third at 3:20 after a remarkable solo ride behind the lead group of Vingegaard and the Red Bull riders.
While he finished frustrated, Kevin Vauquelin is fourth at 3:39, producing a tremendous fightback after being dropped in the crosswinds early on. It looked like he'd be left behind and Ineos would have to get behind Oscar Onley, but the Vauquelin group came back to the Onley group and the Frenchman rode away towards the end. Onley is now 14th at 8:47 down. Carlos Rodriguez, Ineos' other big name, lost more than half an hour.
Frenchman David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ United) and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) are 5th and 6th on GC now, just over five minutes down on Vingegaard, while Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is eighth at 5:45.
Ayuso, one of the big pre-race favourites, is of course, out, as is McNulty.
See below for the full GC table, but in a race that has often been decided by fine margins, Paris-Nice has been blown to smithereens.
Abandons after stage 4
- Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek)
- Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
- Daan Hoole (Decathlon CMA CGM)
- Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal-QuickStep)
- Davide Piganzoli (Visma-Lease a Bike)
- Pablo Castrillo (Movistar)
- Lindsay De Vylder (Alpecin-Premier Tech)
- Luka Mezgec (Jayco AlUla)
- Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility)
- Mathijs Paasschens (Bahrain-Victorious)
- Raúl García Pierna (Movistar)
- Robert Stannard (Bahrain-Victorious)
