Brandon McNulty was eight the last time an American won Paris-Nice. In the tumultuous time – in cycling anyway – of 2006, that winner was Floyd Landis, soon to be banned for doping. 16 years on, in a different sporting landscape, not only is McNulty in the race lead at the week-long stage race going into the final two days, but the man in second is also an American, Matteo Jorgenson.
The UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike pair were part of the three-man winning move on stage six of the race. Neither triumphed in La Colle-sur-Loup, that being Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), but now have quite the advantage over some of the pre-race favourites, like Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe). With just two stages left, either could become the first since Landis to win the Race to the Sun.
McNulty certainly enjoyed being on the attack with a fellow American, who is a year younger than him.
“Besides my teammates, if there was one guy I’d work really well with in a break like this it would be Matteo,” he said post-stage. “That was fun, just like juniors, we were doing the same then.”
McNulty appeared to be surprised to be in a position to take back yellow – he previously held it after Tuesday’s TTT – as Friday’s stage was raced a lot more full-on that he previously thought. However, he now has 23 seconds on Jorgenson, 1:03 on Evenepoel, and a whole 1:44 on Roglič.
“When I came to this race I thought there would be a few hard days, and then a couple of sprint days before the mountains,” he said. “We took a closer look at it in the last days and realised that this finishing circuit was quite hard, so we expected teams to do something.
“Then the race played out, with how long it took the breakaway to go and stuff, it was pretty obvious that it would be an aggressive fight, and that’s exactly what it was.”
“I knew there would be attacks on the circuit but I didn’t really expect to take yellow back, and yet here we are,” the 25-year-old continued. “We’re in a good position now, but you can’t get ahead of yourself. We have two hard days coming, probably with bad weather, and everything. We’ll go tomorrow as hard as we can.”
Stage seven has been shortened due to bad weather, with just 104km being raced, ending on the first-category La Madone d’Utelle. Shorter does not mean easier.
“We have to defend,” McNulty said. “I expect chaos, shorter days are always like this. [There will] probably a big fight for the break, and then the climb will be full gas. We’ll just have to ride well as a team to defend the jersey.”
Two tough stages stand between the Arizonan and history, with Jorgenson also ready to take on the mantle if the situation arises. The Star-Spangled Banner could yet be ringing out over Nice on Sunday afternoon.
