José Joaquín Rojas claimed the 4th place in the third stage of Paris-Nice, a 202km trek where the awaited Côte de Becoup did not match the expectations, playing the final outcome into another mass sprint in the narrow finishing straight.

Movistar Team protected again his fastman for the finale, whose little hardness on the final climb did not avoid pure sprinters get dropped and make Rojas profit from his resistance. In the arrival to Nuits-Saint-Georges, Australian Matthew Goss took the victory in front of Heinrich Haussler, Denis Galimzyanov and the Spaniard, who notched his sixteenth top-15 placement of the season in only 18 competitions -he punctured in his only two other racing days up to date-.

The telephone squad had a busy ride to the finish as one of their leaders, Basque David López, punctured in the last descent; however, Movistar Team’s climber was well helped by Iván Gutiérrez -who gave him his rear wheel- and then Chente García Acosta, who took him into the back of the main field. More climbs are expected on Wednesday, with seven categorized ascents of Cats. 2 & 3 in the 191km route from Crêches-sur-Saône to Belleville.