Paris-Nice came to a close today in France with an individual time trial in which Georg Preidler came home fastest for Team Giant-Alpecin in 45th position, 2’00 down on the stage winner. The other two remaining riders in the race, John Degenkolb and Roy Curvers, finished in 66th and 87th position respectively. Overall Georg was the highest placed overall in 41st.

The time trial followed a black stage for the team on Saturday where the team was reduced to just three riders after a mixture of illness and injuries took their toll on a tough wet and cold stage.

“Without Tom [Dumoulin] we didn’t have too many expectations for today’s stage but the guys finished the race in a good way with a final hard effort. Overall though it hasn’t really been our race.

“But to look to the positives, although we didn’t get our stage win in the sprints, John is in a good state of mind ahead of the classics and he is riding strongly. The sprints here were quite chaotic and at times it is not wise to put it all on the line, but we showed ourselves well as a team.

“Hopefully the guys with illness or injury will be back in good shape soon so we can continue to challenge in our coming objectives.”