Vingegaard wraps up Paris-Nice stage but misses out to Lenny Martinez on final stage

Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious) pipped Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) in a sprint duel to win stage 8 of Paris-Nice after he had been the only rider to track the Dane's searing attack on the Côte du Linguador with 20km remaining. 

Viingegaard's performance saw him seal the general classification by a margin of 4:23 over Daniel Martinez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who lost another 51 seconds on the stage after a crash caused when got entangled with a teammate.

The final stage of the 2026 Paris-Nice began with action from the off, though it took almost 50km for the break to establish itself. 

Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM). Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jefferson Cepeda (Movistar) went clear with Will Barta (Tudor ) and Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) giving chase. Not long after, Paret-Peintre decided to go solo on the Côte de Chateauneuf-Villevieille as the Visma-led peloton split behind on the same climb.

Daniel Martinez faced some adversity on the stage as he went down in a crash on the that climb after being slightly squeezed by a teammate.

Paret-Peintre was caught before the ascent of the Côte du Linguador, a new addition to Paris-Nice, with the pace laid down by Victor Campenaerts (Visma | Lease a Bike) on the steep ascent. 

With 2.4 kilometres remaining of the climb, Campenaerts swung off and that was the cue for Vingegaard to launch as he attempted to put the cherry on the cake by completing a hat-trick of stage wins.

Vingegaard, however, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious) for company, and the Frenchman was simply unshakeable. 

Atop the Côte du Linguador, Vingegaard wrapped up the king of the mountains jersey as Lenny Martinez latched on to the wheel until the descent, where the Frenchman then started to set the pace. Martinez threatened to gap Vingegaard there as the Dane played it safe due to the number of damp patches on the road, and he clearly didn't want to risk his firm grasp on the leader's jersey.

A group of six riders was hanging around the 30-second mark and attempting to chase the duo down, including Kevin Vauquelin (Ineos), Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Alex Baudin and Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), and Mathys Rondel (Tudor).

The group behind was never able to make any ground, however, as Vingegaard and Martinez cooperated well all the way to the flamme rouge. Lenny Martinez bit the bullet first and opened up the sprint and just about held on ahead of a fast-closing Vingegaard.