Luke Lamperti claimed the first win of the season for EF Education-EasyPost and the biggest of his career as the US rider sprinted to victory on the opening day of Paris-Nice.
The three-time criterium national champion, who joined the US squad from Soudal-QuickStep from the start of the year, got the better of Vito Braet (Lotto-Intermarché) and Orluis Aular (Movistar) in a bunch sprint in Carrières-sous-Poissy.
The 171.2km opening stage took in almost 2,000 metres of elevation gain with two ascents of a punchy climb on the finishing circuit, but that did little to significantly reduce the bunch. After a late catch of the breakaway, and crashes inside the final kilometre, Lamperti was expertly led out by Marijn van den Berg and made no mistake.
Cees Bol (Decathlon CMA CGM) was Lamperti’s initial challenger but faded rapidly, while Bingham Grimy (NSN Cycling Team) started to surge in the slipstream but found no space up the barriers or to the left of Lamperti, so had to check his sprint and resign his hopes.
Instead, it was Braet who surged up as the sprinters unfurled to the left, taking a fine second place as Aular punched through the middle for the final podium spot.
"It's super special," said Lamperti. "Marijn was the last guy, we started quite early, he went from far, but luckily he was super strong. He did maybe 350m himself to deliver me to the last 200 so in the end I just had to do the final few metres on my own."
Lamperti, taking the first WorldTour win of his career, also pulls on the yellow jersey as the overall leader of Paris-Nice.
Barring the smattering of bonus seconds, there were no general classification developments, with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) coming through unscathed on his season debut. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) was involved in a crash in the final kilometre but given its position he was awarded the same time as the bunch.
How it unfolded
The 2026 Race to the Sun started out with a 171.2km stage from Achères to Carrières-sous-Poissy in the Yvelines department of the Parisian outskirts. It was a lightly undulating day, with two minor categorised climbs ahead of the two laps of the 16.5km finishing circuit, which featured the short-but-steep Côte de Chanteloup-les-Vignes (1.1km at 8.3%).
After around 10km of attacking, the day’s breakaway was formed by six riders: Casper Pedersen (Soudal-QuickStep), Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost), Sébastien Grignard (Lotto Intermarché), Mathis Le Berre (TotalEnergies), and the Jayco-AlUla duo of Patrick Gamper and Luke Durbridge.
They weren’t given much rope by the peloton, largely marshalled by EF, Picnic-PostNL, and NSN Cycling. The gap hovered below a minute for a while in the early stages, but creeped out to 90 seconds with 100km to go.
It was a quiet affair until the first climb of the Côte de Gargenville (2.3km at 4.7%), where Pedersen outsprinted Walker for maximum mountains points from the break. Pedersen repeated the trick on the Côte de Vaux-sur-Seine (1.4km at 7%), and the breakaway rolled through the finish line with 33km to go with a lead of just over a minute.
It was soon over to the first ascent of the Côte de Chanteloup-les-Vignes, where Pedersen once again skipped clear of the rest to ensure he’ll be wearing the polka-dot jersey as mountains classification leader on stage 2. Back in the peloton, Visma had started to work, which helped bring the gap back under the mini mark.
However, as they started the second ascent of the Côte de Chanteloup-les-Vignes and the final climb of the day, there was still all to play for, with 50 seconds the gap with 12km remaining. Le Berre this time kicked clear of Pedersen atop the climb as the break started to fragment, though Durbridge was the only one who was dropped from it.
Back in the bunch, there were a couple of attacks, which saw Vingegaard alive and marshalling four wheels from the front. There were attacks from the bunch after the descent, too, which saw the gap plummet to 25 seconds, but then the peloton collectively eased off, allowing it to grow back out to 35 seconds inside the final 10km.
That left a tense finale in which the breakaway went all the way to the door of the final kilometre. Visma initially helped get things back under control before the sprint trains started to wind up, with the catch of most of the break made 2km from the line and Grignard the last to be swallowed 1,300 metres from home.
That didn’t leave too much time before the sprint, which was complicated by a narrow left-hand bend just inside the final kilometre, where Martinez was one of the riders to slide out. Up ahead, EF found themselves in the driving seat, and even if Van den Berg had to produce a long lead-out, he was able to slingshot Lamperti towards a win that will do wonders for himself and his team.
Results
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