Heinrich Haussler takes an encouraging 5th place

Heinrich Haussler is certainly gearing up for his first victory in the IAM Cycling colors. For the first stage of the Paris-Nice, which ran from Saint-Germain-en-Laye to Nemours (195 km), the Australian fastman made a strong sprint, netting himself 5th place for the day behind stage winner Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ). Suffering slightly still from the road rash caused by his tumble during his reconnaissance of the prologue course, the IAM rider refused to make any excuses for not having quite reached his expectations. “Tactically, I did not play it perfectly. I was well placed before the final few hundred meters, but I preferred to take my line up the center of the road. Consequently, I was not on the best wheel at the moment the sprint was launched in earnest. It’s a shame because otherwise the stage went perfectly with no crashes for me. But it’s alright since there will be more finishes that suit me in the coming days.”

Though Haussler was able to show himself well in the day and keep up his hopes for the future stages, Johann Tschopp was forced to give up his dreams of figuring prominently in the general classification for “The Race to the Sun.” The man from the Swiss Valais region had to evaluate his day before returning to the hotel. “In the end, I nearly crashed twice. The wind made things very difficult and I was not in a good position. It resulted in my ending up in the second group that was tailed off with around 15 kilometers to go. I’m disappointed.” Martin Elminger had a second day of tough going resulting from the painful after affects of his prologue crash, with a saddle sore adding to the IAM Cycling rider’s woes.