Paris Nice Stage 5 Review - Cousin Bounds To Fine Success

Before a pedal stroke of this race, if you had asked any team whether they’ve had taken two stage victories at Paris-Nice, all of the team directors would have bitten your hand off for such a result. Direct-Energie achieved exactly that with three stages left to spare, as Jerome Cousin used all of his nous to hold on for victory into Sisteron, managing to get the better of Nils Politt after tactically outsmarting the German, who made a bold bid to give Katusha-Alpecin a European double as their sprinter Marcel Kittel won the first road stage of Tirreno-Adriatico earlier.

Cousin was part of the original breakaway that managed to escape from the peloton, with Cousin and Politt joining Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Julien El Fares (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), with the quarter having 3:45 over the peloton after 30km of the stage. At the peak of the race’s first category climb, the Col de Lagarde d'Apt, the gap would have grown to 4:30 over the peloton, being led by Astana.

At this point, Eden would attack to try and grab valuable points for the King of the Mountains, although Jerome Cousin would take the first place in that competition, as he had done for the Col du Pointu previously.

There were a number of riders, sprinters especially, who were dropped going up the Lagarde d’Apt, but they managed to get back into the peloton on the descent afterwards, leaving the four long riders out front against a peloton with a great deal of interest in contesting the finish. There was splits once again in the peloton after Quick-Step and Lotto, both with multiple contenders for the finish, combined to set a fierce pace on the long downhill.

Caught in this split where Nacer Bohanni (COfiids) along with John Degenkolb (Trek), and so fast was the pace that the break was now within 3:45 and the dropped riders were now 45 seconds behind the peloton. When the riders had reached Sisteron’s finishing circuit the gap was 2:27, a substantial reduction although still a decent gap given they were within the last 20 kilometres now.

It was at this point when Politt launched his attack from the break into the Côte de la Marquise, and distancing his rivals. Team Sky meanwhile, were going full pelt behind as Ploitt struggled to turn a big gear on terrain that di not quite suit whilst Diego Rosa was hitting the pedals heard. Cousin would soon head to join him with the two combing. The gap was now just one minute, and the pace was once again jettisoning some riders with Demare dropped for the second time.

After the descent, Cousin kicked once again, enraging his breakaway companion who shouted at him from the bike whilst Mitchelton-Scott took up the chase to try and deliver their new man Matteo Trentin a chance at a sprint finish. Cousin was not putting in close to half the work in the breakaway, leaving the German to shout ‘Allez’ in a hearted but futile attempt to bring some cooperation, Politt is known for having an engine, however – and it was working clearly as with 4 kilometres to go they had 40 seconds in hand on the chasing pack who had not made the inroads needed through the second circuit, and it appeared likely this would be a two man shootout.

That was then thrown into doubt as the two began to play cat and mouse with each other with the peloton in sight down the long finishing straight, and Pollitt's exertions looked to be telling as Cousin easily closed his attack that came with 1.6 kilometres to go.

There was a crash behind, with a Cofidis rider heading into a tree and Mitchelton-Scott rider looking worse for wear, but when the time came all eyes were upfront and Cousin’s first serious sprint attempt was too much for the weary German, with the closing peloton just behind as Andre Greipel led the bunch home for third place, two seconds behind Pollitt, with Magnus Cort fourth and Alexander Kristoff fifth.