Paris-Nice (st. 7)

Third place for the Colombian at Col d'Eze's mountain TT, epilogue for a 2013 Paris-Nice where his crash on day four deprived him of a great GC finish

A crash suffered during the key phase of the stage finishing at Saint-Vallier, which cost him more than two minutes, proved decisive for Nairo Quintana not to make the podium in the 71st Paris-Nice. The Colombian rider from the Movistar Team confirmed to be one of the strongest men on course during the Col d’Eze’s mountain ITT, being only beaten into the 9.6km course from the Côte d’Azur’s capital by the two man battling for the final yellow jersey, Australian Richie Porte (SKY), who won the stage and the overall, and American Andrew Talansky (GRS), who clocked times twenty-seven and four seconds (respectively) faster than Nairo’s.

The Movistar Team youngster ended in 15th place overall, but should those two minutes hadn’t happened on Thursday, he would have stepped into a final podium where Frenchman Jean-Christophe Péraud (ALM) eventually accompanied Porte and Talansky. Movistar Team is finally closing a week full of misfortune in Paris-Nice, as Quintana’s accident came together with other major incidents for Erviti –still able to finish the race despite pain all over his body- and Rui Costa -forced to abandon with 16 stitches in his hand- plus the nephritic spasm that sent Iván Gutiérrez home.