Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, France--Australia's Michael Matthews took the overall leader's yellow jersey in the Paris-Nice cycle race on Wednesday with his Orica teammates helping him to victory in the third stage.
The 24-year-old Matthews, who has stage wins to his credit in both the Tour of Spain and the Tour of Italy, edged home first ahead of Italians Davide Cimolai and Giacomo Nizzolo with fourth place going to Norwegian Alexander Kristoff.
Polish world champion Michal Kwiatkowski had held the overall lead from his win in the prologue, but Matthews earned enough bonus points as the stage winner on Wednesday to take over.
The early going in the 179-kilometre run down from Saint-Amand-Montron was marked by a breakaway by French pair Florian Vachon and Thomas Voeckler accompanied by Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert.
But they were reeled in by the peloton with about 10 kilometres to go after which Frenchman Romain Bardet, Belgian teammate Jan Bakelants and Paolo Tiralongo of Italy went clear.
In turn they were caught with two kilometres to go, setting up the sprint finish won by Matthews.
AFP
