page_title: 2012 Paris–Nice
section_title: Stage 1
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Paris–Nice / Stages / Stage 1
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Wiggo paris nice 2012
context_page_description: The 2012 Paris–Nice was the 70th running of the Paris–Nice cycling stage race, often known as the Race to the Sun. It started on 4 March in Dampierre-en-Yvelines and ended on 11 March in Nice and consisted of eight stages, including two time trials that bookended the race. It was the second race of the 2012 UCI World Tour season.
  The race was won by Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, who took the lead on the second stage of the race and held the race leader's yellow jersey to the finish, becoming the first British rider to win the race since Tom Simpson in 1967. Wiggins also took home the green jersey for amassing the highest number of points during stages at intermediate sprints and stage finishes. Wiggins won the general classification by eight seconds over runner-up Lieuwe Westra, who was winner of the race's queen stage to Mende. Movistar Team's Alejandro Valverde completed the podium, 62 seconds behind Westra and 70 seconds down on Wiggins.
context_section_description: 4 March 2012 — Dampierre-en-Yvelines to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, 9.4 km (5.8 mi) individual time trial (ITT)
  The race began in the Vallée de Chevreuse for the first time, as it reverted to an opening individual time trial stage after race organisers elected to run a road stage first in 2011. Apart from the third-category climb of the Côte des Dix-sept Tournants – the hill of seventeen turns – the stage was relatively flat, dropping only 9 metres (30 ft) in altitude from the start, to the end. With rain expected to disrupt the stage, teams decided to spread their time trial specialists across the field in order to maximise their potential of winning the stage. For the first rider to depart the start in Dampierre-en-Yvelines, Project 1t4i's Alexandre Geniez, weather conditions were cloudy and grey, with slightly damp roads due to overnight rains. He ultimately recorded a time of 12' 10" for the stage.
  Geniez held the lead for all of a few minutes as Denis Menchov (Team Katusha) improved upon his time by eight seconds, before Garmin–Barracuda rider Thomas Dekker was the first rider to set a time below twelve minutes, recording a time of 11' 56"; a six-second improvement on Menchov's time. Michael Mørkøv (Team Saxo Bank), and later Maarten Wynants (Rabobank) both improved upon Dekker's time, but by the end of the first wave of riders to depart, it was Omega Pharma–Quick-Step and Sylvain Chavanel that held the lead, recording a time of 11' 31". Following a quick start to the stage, Vacansoleil–DCM's Thomas De Gendt was the next rider to hold the provisional best time on the stage, besting Chavanel's time by less than a second. De Gendt, who won the opening stage of the race in 2011, ultimately picked up the polka-dot jersey for the lead in the mountains classification, as he held the quickest time to the intermediate timing point, at the summit of the Côte des Dix-sept Tournants. De Gendt's time held for a while, as riders struggled to match the pace that he had set, with only Markel Irizar of RadioShack–Nissan coming within touching distance of his time, finishing one second down.
  It was not until De Gendt's Vacansoleil–DCM team-mate Gustav Larsson – the Swedish national champion in the discipline – that his time was beaten; Larsson, although six seconds slower than De Gendt to the intermediate checkpoint, put in a better second element to the race, eventually crossing the finish line in an eventual stage-winning time of 11' 19". Omega Pharma–Quick-Step also deployed Levi Leipheimer in the first half of riders to complete the course, and did so in a time four seconds slower than Larsson. The weather closed in for the last batch of riders, providing a tougher test for those riders in wanting to position themselves highly in the stage classification. BMC Racing Team's Tejay van Garderen and Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins both attacked the course late on, and were rewarded with finishes inside the top five, as van Garderen finished nine seconds down on Larsson, while Wiggins – a winner of the time trial stage in February's Volta ao Algarve – fell short by just one second, but ensured he had an advantage of 24 seconds on defending race-winner and world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma–Quick-Step), who could only finish 28th.
caption: Bradley Wiggins finished second to Gustav Larsson by one second on the stage, despite encountering wet conditions.
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