France’s Godon wins shortened Paris-Nice stage seven

France’s Dorian Godon won a shortened penultimate stage of the Paris-Nice elite cycling event, with Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard poised for overall race victory.

Saturday’s seventh stage was due to play out across 138.7km – finishing with a decisive 7.3km climb to the mountain top at Auron – but the final 7.3km ascent was dropped because of heavy snowfall.

Organisers said prior to the race that the planned summit finish was “unfeasible”, and heavy rain also meant they had to cut the opening sector.

Ineos rider Godon won the sprint finish with Eritrean Biniam Girmay second and Dutchman Cees Bol third – sealing victory in just over an hour.

“I never thought I’d win a mountain stage one day on Paris-Nice,” Godon said.

“Before the start of the season I bought a bottle of wine called Satisfied. It’s at home and I wasn’t allowed to open it until I won.

It is the second time in three years organisers have been forced to abandon plans for a summit finish in the so-called ‘queen stage’ of the race, which concludes in Nice on Sunday.

Vingegaard goes into the final stage with a commanding lead of three minutes 22 seconds over Colombia’s Dani Martinez in the general classification.

“I think it is very important that we race. This is one of the biggest races in the world, but it was pretty slippery towards the end,” Vingegaard said.

“We were, and still are, very much in favour of racing. You have to understand that Paris-Nice is one of the biggest races in the world, there are many sponsors involved, and they want to stage their finish – so we were keen to race.

“But when the finish line is here, maybe it is no longer possible. It would have been better to place the finish line 10 kilometres earlier. For us as riders, rain is part of the job, but when there is snow it is different.

There were no such weather concerns in the penultimate leg of the Tirreno-Adriatico – the prestigious Italian stage race.

In-form Mexican Isaac Del Toro extended his overall lead with an impressive victory in a hill-top finish in Camerino, following a punishing 189km route from San Severino Marche.

The 22-year-old UAE Team rider started the day with a 23-second advantage over Italy’s Giulio Pellizzari and increased that to 42 seconds, with Sunday’s final stage into the seaside town of San Benedetto del Tronto set up for the sprinters.

Pellizzari attacked Del Toro on the final climb of the day, 3km from the finish line, but the leader stayed firm and dropped his rival with 500m remaining, going on to win the stage by three seconds from Norwegian Tobias Johannessen.