Nairo Quintana won the first two stage races of the season, the Tour de la Provence and Tour des Alpes, and entered Paris-Nice as the overwhelming favorite to win the overall. However, a crosswind knocked him down on the second stage, and he fell 1:50 behind race leader Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe). Alcare's sporting director, Yvon Rudanova, nevertheless refused to give up and focused on his team's reaction to the leader's predicament.

"This stage was going well until 25 km from the finish," Redanova said. Quintana was in the lead peloton after the race broke up on both stage 1 and Monday's stage 2, but disaster struck when Quintana crashed. The riders were on alert inside the peloton when Nairo crashed."

"The thing to remember about this moment is the reaction of the riders. They immediately stayed with the leader: his brother Deyer handed him the bike, Diego Rosa waited for the restart and tried to make the gap at the finish as small as possible. Conor (Swift) fell off the first peloton. The crash is part of the race, it's Paris-Nice."

In theory, there should still be plenty of ground left for Quintana to make up time, especially on stage 7, La Colmiane, which is an important opportunity for the Colombian. Unless a coronavirus outbreak interrupts the race before it reaches Nice, Quintana may have other opportunities now that he has lost so much time.

"Paris-Nice is not over yet, and we can take chances that we wouldn't have taken without this stage.

"I'm not going to complain or doubt everything. This event will end on Sunday in Alpes-Maritimes. Neither professional cyclists nor sport directors like these days. And above all, when you are at the start of a millimeter-studied, tricky, windy stage, this is ultimately not what we want. We have to accept that and look ahead," he concluded.