Lotto-Soudal breakaway specialist Thomas De Gendt closed out Saturday's final Paris-Nice stage, and likely the last major race for some time, with his customary "final breakaway."

The Belgian, along with Julien Alaphilippe (Deschuninck-Quickstep) and mountain leader Nicolas Ede (Cofidis), attacked in the first 20km of the stage.

The group stayed together until the final climb of the day, the 16km first class finish at Valdellore-la-Cormène. However, with 10km to go, De Gendt went solo and passed the GC group 1:30 ahead of him.

In the end, the day did not end with a victory for De Gendt, as it did in Saint-Etienne last July. The 33-year-old was caught and passed by final stage winner Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) with 3km to go before the finish, finishing in 11th place, 1:48 behind.

"I could see from his face that Alaphilippe was in the group. 'I didn't want to take any chances, so I left him behind. But I didn't believe in winning anymore. I was drained of energy." [In the lead group, Alberto Bettiol and Aurélien Pare-Pantol didn't cooperate, and Anthony Perez was useless on the climbs. In the end, the three of us did the job, but there was still an attack before the 150 km mark."

"I also knew I had a one minute lead with 3km to go before the finish. But then came Quintana. But I went back to Belgium feeling good. But I was able to come back to Belgium feeling good.

And he said after the race that he was happy to have competed in the reduced Race to the Sun, despite the chaos of last week, when countless races were canceled due to the Covid 19 coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm really happy to be able to run Paris-Nice. Otherwise, all that hard training would have been for nothing."

"I'm very happy to have been able to run the Paris-Nice race.

"It's a great race this year, even if the peloton is smaller. To be honest, the race lost some of its shine with so many top teams dropping out, but there were really battles every day. You only have to look at the stage won by Thiej Benoot (stage 6) and the final stage where they fought for the overall win."

Lotto Soudal started the race with only 17 teams as seven WorldTour teams retired before the start. Bahrain McLaren and Israel Startup Nation also withdrew mid-race, so even eight teams and two additional invitees could not stop the race, which ended with a small field of 62 finishers.

"Of course, we sympathize with the withdrawal of these teams. Each team made its choice, and each team respected the choices of the others." Each team made its choice and each team respected the other's choice. If the team doctors had decided not to allow us to run, we would not have run."

"We followed all instructions during the race, and in the end we only had contact with people from our own team, so the possibility of infection was minimal. Let's hope that the current situation recovers as soon as possible and that we can race again in a month or two."

Two months seems like an optimistic timeframe at this point, as the Giro d'Italia, May's premier event, was forced to announce its postponement on Friday. As of Saturday afternoon, the next World Tour races will be the Tour of Flanders and Ituriá Basque on April 5 and 6-11.

However, the prognosis for Flanders is bleak, and with the total number of coronavirus cases in the Basque provinces of Arava, Guipuzcoa, and Biscayá exceeded 500 on Friday, the chances of a race there do not look positive.

For de Gendt, and for all the other pro riders, the issue of race cancellations boils down to the question of what on earth they will be training for and peaking at in the coming months.

"That's something I need to discuss with my coach. 'The hardest part is what you're aiming for: the Belgian Championships in mid-May (June). Tour de France

"It's a bit silly to peak on a particular date when you don't know what the prospects are. I think the Tour can go on. That's what we're trying to do."