After a stage finish in Orléans last year, Paris-Nice, the first stage cycling race of the season, returns again this year to Loiret. This time, it will be Dampierre-en-Burly, near Gien, which will have the pleasure and honor of welcoming the runners on March 7th.
This town of 1,500 inhabitants, dominated by its nuclear power station, will be particularly festive since it is to it that the organizers have reserved the main novelty of this 81st edition which will leave Yvelines on March 5: the holding of a – the 32.2 km team time trial, for the first time since 1993, and the introduction for the occasion of a hitherto unprecedented rule in this type of event.
Instead of being taken from the third or fourth runner to cross the line, “the times of this collective time will be recorded on the first of each team”, specify the organizers. A decision which, according to the analysis of the director of the Tour de France Christian Prudhomme, “should force the best teams in the world to adapt their workforce and to try new strategies in the interest of their leaders”.
The Dampierre-en-Burly site, with several long straights, should be particularly well suited to this exercise which will be reminiscent of the team speed test on the track.
After this third day, the 22 teams will take the start of the fourth stage in Saint-Amand-Montrond, in the neighboring department of Cher, and the final will take place as usual in Nice, on March 12, where the year last victory went to Slovenian Primoz Roglic.