After engineering a breakaway of over 160 km on the penultimate stage of the Paris-Nice, Johann Tschopp succeeded in hammering his stamp on the race’s King of the Mountains jersey.

As one of eleven escapees, the man from the Valais region had the luxury of picking off the top spot in four of the five categorized climbs, two of which threw off first category points. With thirty-three additional points scored on the day, Tschopp came away with a firm grip on the jersey with only one more stage to finish. After all the climbing, Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) won the sprint on a very fast run into the city of Nice on the Promenade des Anglais.

At the end of the day, Johann Tschopp was very pleased to have accomplished his objective for the race, “I made the right move to get into the break and then managed to take top points over every climb except for the first little bump. If we hadn’t had two pretty dangerous riders for the GC in our group, we probably could have hoped to play for the victory. In any case, winning the climbers jersey is a great victory not only for me, but for IAM Cycling as well. We have shown the jersey throughout the week at the head of the race, and have been competitive on several levels.”