The team time trial has not been held in Paris since 1993, and race regulations have been changed so that each team's time will be that of the first finisher, not the fourth or fifth.
Other notable features of the 2023 Paris-Nice route include a tough summit finish at Les Loges de Gardes ski resort on stage 4, a "wall stage" on stage 6 that rivals the Tirreno-Adriatico route, and the Col de la Cuillol on the final Saturday at the Paris-Nice highest peak finish (last used in 2017).
More familiar elements from this very complicated route are the two flat stages early on, where crosswinds and echelons are expected, and the round-the-Nice showdown stage on Sunday the 12th, which nearly poleaxed last year's winner, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma). Tour de France winner and teammate Jonas Vingegaard will lead Jumbo Visma and will be one of the pre-race favorites to win.
David Gaudet, Christophe Laporte, Arnaud Demaret, Romain Bardet, Florian Seneschal, Simon Yates, Daniel Martinez, and Stephane Kühn are also expected to compete in the 2023 "Race to the Sun."
The 1,201-km route from Paris to Nice in 2023 will open on March 5 with a circuit starting and finishing in the town of La Verrière, west of Paris. [Sprinters Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Arnaud Des Liers (Lotto-Destony), and Arnaud Demaret (Groupama-FDJ) will also be looking to these stages.
The history of Paris-Nice strongly suggests that an early GC hierarchy may have emerged after these two stages, culminating in last year's dramatic opening leg when Jumbo Visma took three top spots with a clever escape. However, the third stage will be the first team time trial since 1993, when Onset swept Paris-Nice in Roanne.
At 32.2 km, it is twice the distance of the Paris-Nice individual time trial in the 2021 and 2022 editions. The key difference, however, is that the time of the first finisher will be measured, not the fourth or fifth finisher as usual.
It remains to be seen how this rule change will alter the strategy of the TTT, which is considered one of the most complex road races. [The last 50km will be steep, with the finish, La Rogue de Garde, a 6.7km climb of over 7%.
However, the 90th anniversary of the Race to the Sun seems to have taken a page from the Tirreno-Adriatico route book, judging by the "shark's tooth" stage profile of stage 6: the 2021 Paris-Nice Chalons-Sur-Saone-Cirbourg section ( Primoz Roglic won), but this year's "Wall Stage" is much denser, with viciously steep gradients awaiting at each section on the back roads behind Nice. [Côte des Tuileries (km80), Côte de Carrien (km112), Côte de Cabris (km133), Côte de la Colle sur Rue (km166), and Tourette sur Rue (km176) each have steep hills ranging from 12-20%, A 20-km dash to the finish at La Colle-sur-Rue follows. A familiar but equally challenging series of climbs through the Alpes-Maritimes region awaits on the final weekend.
Saturday's second summit finish, the 1,678-meter-high Col de la Cuillol, is the highest point in Paris-Nice, at the end of a 15-km climb.
The only previous appearance in Paris-Nice was in 2017, when Richie Porte won the race, but it has recently become part of the route of the Mercantour Classic, a small one-day summer race.
In 2023, Paris-Nice will end with the traditional "fireworks" final stage around Nice, with three first-class mountains and a fall from the Col d'Eze to decide the overall winner.
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