Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) placed third on stage 5 of Paris-Nice in Salon-de-Provence on Friday to retain the yellow jersey of overall leader, which he has held since winning the prologue last Sunday.
With no Col d’Éze time trial on the closing weekend, and with Matthews clearly in fine climbing form, it begs the question as to whether the Australian can follow in the paths of fast finishers such as Sean Kelly and Laurent Jalabert, and pull off an unexpected overall victory.
"I'm not going to say I can win Paris-Nice but I'm going to give it everything I have. It's already over for the green jersey, I won it, so now it's all for the yellow,” Matthews said on Friday afternoon.
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Although Matthews’ overall lead was sliced to 6 seconds over Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), who moved up to second after soloing to stage victory, the Australian extended his over the pre-race favourites by a further 4 seconds thanks to the time bonus he picked up for placing third on the stage, just behind Alexander Kristoff (Katusha).
"I had noted this stage down as I was hoping we could get rid of the sprinters along the way but as we didn't, we sat back and let the other teams do the work,” Matthews said. “The priority was then the yellow jersey more than the stage win.
“It was a hard day for everybody but I feel good. Not super but good. I don't think anybody feels super after the first three days we had."
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