Michael Mørkøv (Saxo-Tinkoff) proclaimed himself “very happy” with his second place in Paris-Tours despite being well beaten by John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano). The Danish champion did managed to relegate FDJ.fr’s French star sprinter Arnaud Démare into third place, and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) into fourth, despite being part of a seven-man breakaway on the final climb of the race with less than ten kilometres to go.
“I felt really well today and naturally I'm very happy to finish in second place behind Degenkolb,” said Mørkøv afterwards. “It is the culmination of the last few weeks of preparation with the team and there is no doubt that I would never have been able to do this kind of finale without the team's hard work throughout the entire race. Although it's my name standing in the results, it's been a true team effort.”
Although Paris-Tours is known as “the Sprinters’ Classic,” it is only rarely that it actually finishes in a bunch sprint, particularly since the final kilometres were changed in 2011 because of the new Tours tram system making much of the Avenue de Grammont unusable. The sprinters have been going looking for the victory themselves, however, as Degenkolb had done unsuccessfully in 2012 when he just failed to chase down the winning trio in the final kilometres.
This time, the potentially decisive break of the race, over the top of the Cóte de l’Epan, contained not only Mørkøv, but Degenkolb and Démare as well. Even though they were caught by the peloton, which had to close down the solo attack from Belkin’s Jetse Bol, the three of them were still able to fill the three podium spots at the finish.
“I'm getting better at in the big sprints but I do not consider myself as a sprinter,” Mørkøv added, despite leaving several big names in his wake. “Jonas [Aaen] put me in a perfect position in the run-in and without the support from the boys, I wouldn't have finished up here.”