Trek-Segafredo and Deceuninck-Quick Step attempted to break up the bunch during the last 70km, this with some help of some side winds on the open roads south of Paris, without much result. The hatchet was buried and so the peloton slowly moved towards Amilly, unfortunately, a few crashes happened as the bunch was nervous. The sprint was prepared late, again with the guys from Trek in a leading role. A crash in the final kilometer caused extra confusion, Sam was in about 10th place going into the last 500 meters and couldn’t make up the distance to the front. Pedersen could have benefited from Stuyven’s perfect pilot work, but he had no recourse against the rocket that Cees Bol fired. Michael Matthews did everything he could to finish his wheel in third place so that he could start as leader tomorrow. Sam was 5th and due to bonus seconds of Matthews during sprints and the 3rd place at the line had to let the yellow go, but he takes the green instead, level with Pedersen with 21 points.
Parijs – Nice GC after stage 2
1 Michael Matthews BEX 8:19:23
2 Mads Pedersen TFS +4
3 Sam Bennett DQT +4
4 Cees Bol DSM +4
5 Arnaud Démare GFC +8
6 André Greipel ISN +11
7 Tiesj Benoot DSM +12
8 Florian Vermeersch LTS +12
9 Jasper Stuyven TFS +13
10 Ben Swift IGD +13
