After the loss of Tejay van Garderen, BMC have changed their focus in Paris-Nice to Peter Velits who showed good form on Wednesday's first hard climbing stays. With the Slovakian confirming his sensations in yesterday's stage, the team is hopeful that he can play a key role in the upcoming decisive stages while Greg Van Avermaet continued to show his great condition by posting a fine top 10 result.

BMC Racing Team's Greg Van Avermaet finished eighth Thursday at Paris-Nice as a three-man breakaway held on to dash the peloton's hopes for a field sprint. Four categorized climbs – the last cresting the course with 12.5 kilometers to go – dotted the 153-km route from Creche-sur-Saone to Rive-de-Gier.

Five riders slipped the peloton after 17 km: Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Matthew Busche (Trek Factory Racing), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling), Brice Feillu (Bretagne-Seche Environnement) and Gorka Izaguirre (Movistar Team). But their advantage never topped three minutes and the last of them was brought back on the final climb.

After a reduced peloton topped the last climb together, three riders attacked: Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana Pro Team) and Bob Jungels (Trek Factory Racing). The trio built a 10-second lead and held off the chase by two seconds as Betancur took the win ahead of Jungels. Bryan Coquard (Team Europcar) won the bunch sprint.

Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) kept the overall lead, three seconds ahead of John Degenkolb (Team Giant-Shimano) and four seconds in front of Stage 4 winner Tom-Jelte Slagter (Garmin-Sharp). Peter Velits is the BMC Racing Team's best-placed rider in 15th, 19 seconds back, with three stages to go.

"It was quite a hard stage – always up and down," Van Avermaet said. "I tried to stay up there in the first group, which I did, and I did a good sprint. I am happy with the result. I was a little bit disappointed yesterday because I thought I could make it (up the last climb). But today, I was there, which was important. It was the whole day suffering and a good day of training. I am confident for the next days."

"Peter Velits has confirmed that he has the legs for tomorrow," sports director Yvon Ledanois said. "And the day after that is also very hard. Today, I had three riders – Greg, Amaël Moinard and Peter Stetina – who were perfect for the final. It is always important to have two or three riders in one group with the leader, so I am happy with today. Now, we will take it stage-by-stage for the GC (general classification)."

You can read our preview of stage 6 here and follow our live coverage of the stage at 14.25 CET on CyclingQuotes.com/live.