For the second day in a row, John Degenkolb got close to a stage win in Paris-Nice but young Moreno Hofland got the jump on him and held on to take the victory. The German was happy to see his lead-out work much better than on the first day but was clearly frustrated to have missed out on another big opportunity.

For the second day in a row John Degenkolb was been beaten to the line by the narrowest of margins at Paris – Nice.

After a great display of teamwork in the closing kilometres with the Team Giant-Shimano guys keeping out of trouble, once again avoiding the crashes which plagued the peloton, and setting up John at the front to sprint it out for the stage victory.

Today it was Moreno Hofland (Belkin) who denied the German sprinter from taking his first stage win of this year’s race, just holding on to take stage 2 in a tough uphill gallop.

The Team Giant-Shimano train was in full flow in the final kilometres as they kept the pace high and kept Degenkolb out of the wind and out of trouble and heading under the red kite it was once again looking promising for the team.

As the road turned upwards in the final few hundred metres Hofland got the jump on Degenkolb and led out the sprint. Degenkolb came back to his wheel and started to come past him as they approached the line but fell just short and was resigned to second place. The speed in the sprint was so high on the uphill finish that several splits occurred with many riders losing out on valuable seconds.

Degenkolb now sits second overall and is joint on points with Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) in that competition.

After the finish, John Degenkolb had a few kind words to say about the hard work the guys put in today.

“It is sad that I couldn’t finish off the great job that the team did today. We rode a much better finish than we did yesterday which is good, but our timing was not quite perfect.

“A big thank you goes out to my teammates for their efforts today, and hopefully tomorrow we can go one better.”

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