Kanter bolts to first WorldTour win on Paris-Nice stage 2

Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) took the first WorldTour victory of his career after winning stage 2 of Paris-Nice, with a strong sprint, finishing off the top leadout from experienced Dutchman Mike Teunissen. 

The final 30 kilometres of the stage were marred with crashes, including an incident in the run-in, which led to Biniam Girmay (NSN) not finishing within the top 20 of the stage.

A breakaway of the day quickly established, with it featuring two riders who were in the breakaway on stage 1, which was caught within the final kilometres, those two being Mathis Le Berre (TotalEnergies) and Casper Pedersen (Soudal Quick-Step). 

This time, the peloton kept the breakaway of the day well within an arm's length, with the duo's advantage never exceeding the 2'30" mark on the stage.

Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) can be pleased after the stage, as the Spaniard took home four bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint of the day unconstested, which will be needed in his expected general classification scrap come the end of the week with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike).

With a bunch sprint in store, the teams with fast men really took control, and the break was reeled in with 59 kilometres to go, setting up a relaxed run in to the final 20 kilometres where the sprint trains began to establish themselves with the likes of NSN taking a chokehold on the procedings to tee up their star man, Biniam Girmay, who aimed to acheive a better result than the opening stage where the Eritrean's sprint was held up with courtsey of being blocked in. 

It wasn't to be all sunshine as what was expected inside the remaining kilometres, as with 32 kilometres to go, a pile-up occurred in the middle of the peloton and took down several riders, with the most affected appearing to be German fast man, Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious), and other riders involved gradually making it back onto a relaxed pace peloton.

The finale was becoming somewhat of a snoozefest for the riders until Daan Hoole (Lidl-Trek) launched an audacious move 21 kilometres from the line, which woke up the sprint teams from their afternoon slumber to work together to chase down the Dutchman. The main teams working were the aforementioned NSN and also, to a 'surprise', Movistar, with Ineos, Tudor bringing numbers to the front as Hoole still pushed on as his gap went out to over 15 seconds with 17 kilometres to go.

Another crash happened in the finale, and again towards the back end of the peloton, taking down riders from Alpecin and Bahrain, amongst others, giving Hoole a further advantage.

A thrilling ending was in store as Hoole was still ahead of the peloton, flying at speeds over 50km/h as the peloton fought to reel Hoole in with his advantage at 8 seconds with 2.5 kilometres to go and he was caught with 1.5 to go. XDS-Astana were the best positioned and the Kazakh team were able to take advantage of the prime sprinting real estate to win the stage with Kanter.

All eyes are now on stage three with a TTT in store for the riders to tackle.