We're currently in the midst of what could probably be considered the busiest week of racing of the year. Now that we've done away with the clash between the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia Women, the week of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico can probably stake a pretty good claim on that crown.Despite murmurs a few years ago that the UCI wanted to put an end to WorldTour races overlapping, that rule is yet to come to fruition, and so the busy week of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico lives on as it always has, with two majorly important races happening every day this week and all the major stars in action.Except, are they actually? This week used to mean literally every top stage racing star was in action, and that would, in theory, tell us a lot about how the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France were going to go, but in reality, I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. Is this actually crunch week, or is it just a wildly busy week that we might not actually learn that much from?Despite being squeezed in the middle of the Classics season – dating back to a time where stage racers and Classics men were actually different riders, rather than the same names just dominating both – Paris-Nice has long been seen as something of a Tour de France test race. Not to the extent of the Critérium du Dauphiné, but it was an early-season test on French roads and Tour contenders would often be lured into action.Similarly with Tirreno-Adriatico, often a bit less climb-packed than Paris-Nice, but usually won by a rider who would go on to be a protagonist in the Giro or Tour. So we certainly have the feeling that the events of this week are going to teach us something, and drop some hints towards Grand Tour season.Rather than just work on presumptions, though, I wanted to look at the actual stats, and I was surprised. In the last 20 editions, the winner of Paris-Nice has gone on to win the Tour de France in the same year four – or maybe six – times (depending on how you want to treat Alberto Contador and Floyd Landis, who won both, but were stripped of their Tour results). On every other occasion but one, the winner didn't even finish on the podium, with Tadej Pogačar the only rider to win Paris-Nice and then finish second or third at the Tour in 2023.The Tirreno winner has won the Tour in the same year twice in the last 20 years, and twice won the Giro, with two other podium finishes. So the correlation is decidedly low, lower than the Dauphiné-Tour relationship, and lower than probably a lot of us think.
