Paris-Nice will celebrate its 75th edition by heading higher than it ever has before, with a summit finish on the Col de la Couillole, at 1,678m, billed as the standout stage on the 2017 route, which was unveiled in Paris today.
The parcours, which offers opportunities for the sprinters on the first three days before becoming a more GC-oriented affair, also features an uphill time trial on Mont Brouilly, which was set to make its debut this year before heavy snow saw it scrapped.
The race will eschew its habitual final-day finish on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in respect of those who lost their lives in the terror attack of last July, when a lorry was deliberately driven into crowds, killing 86 people. The race will instead culminate on the Quai des Etats-Unis, slightly further down the coast towards the headland.
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The race has often started with a prologue, but this year will kick off with a criterium race in Bois d’Arcy in the Yvelines area on the outskirts of Paris. The peloton will rack up 148.5 kilometres before the likely bunch sprint for the line. The sprinters will also come to the fore on the following two stages, which take the race south to Amilly and Chalon-sur-Saône, respectively.
Stage 4 is where the general classification battle will come to life, with the only race against the clock of the 2017 edition taking the riders up Mont Brouilly – the 3km climb that was meant to make its debut in the race last year on a road stage. The time trial is 14.5km long and is benign until the road starts to kick up in the final three kilometres for the climb, which averages 7.7 per cent and features ramps of over nine per cent in the final kilometre. The climb is shorter, but steeper, than the Col d’Eze, which has been used for time trials in previous editions.
The sprinters should be slugging out once again – and maybe for the final time – on stage 5 to Bourg-de-Péage, before three decisive stages in the south of France.
Paris-Nice 2017 stages
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