John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano) put in a valiant effort as he tried to defend the leader's jersey in today's tough stage of Paris-Nice. In the end, he lost it by the tiniest of margins and the team is now looking forward to a bit of rest after a few hard days.

Despite a valiant fight and chase from John Degenkolb over the top of the day’s final climb, he has lost the leader’s jersey by just three seconds. Degenkolb lost grip of the peloton on the steep ramps of the final climb with 15km to go. He had already navigated the longest climb of the day prior to this but lost ground at the climbers started to test each other.

A fast, frantic chase down the other side ensued as Degenkolb tried to regain contact, putting in a lot off effort to do so. He eventually came across the line 17 seconds down on stage winner Tom Jelte-Slagter (Garmin – Sharp), and he dropped to second overall due to the time bonuses on the time, with Geraint Thomas (Sky) taking over the race lead.

After the stage, coach Christian Guiberteau said:

“They tried their best today and fought really hard. The guys rode hard throughout the day for the jersey but it all came down to the final climb. It was really tough but John was around some of the best climbers and held on for quite a long time.

“Even after the climb he rode hard to save the jersey and didn’t get a lot of help. It’s a shame to lose the jersey by so little but it was a strong performance. Tomorrow is another up and down stage and now we don’t have the jersey it will be a chance for a few of the guys to recover after riding hard the past few days. It’s not too difficult but I think it suits a breakaway, so we will look to make a plan of action.”

You can read a preview of stage 5 here and follow our live coverage at 14.25 CET on CyclingQuotes.com/live.