At the start of the first road stage of this year's Paris-Nice stage race cyclingnews.com reported that the rain was falling and the wind was blowing. The weather was so atrocious that the distance was cut in half... quite unusual for a professional road race.

As a winner of stage two of the 2007 Tour de France to Ghent, Gert Steegmans was known as a specialist for uphill bunch sprint finishes. He showed it once again by winning stage one of Paris-Nice in Nevers. The race was shortened in half to 93.5 kilometers due to severe weather, but was contested on a very high speed when Steegmans' team-mates from Quick Step decided to put the hammer down in the cross wind.

Under the rain, the Belgian squad looked as comfortable as if it was racing in its own backyard, unlike the diminutive Spaniards from Euskaltel who were daunted by the high winds. "Kevin Hulsmans and myself, we looked at them and we laughed, they were scared," Steegmans testified.

Nice. It takes balls to say that sort of thing but it takes even bigger balls to walk the walk and Steegmans did that in spades. Not only did Quick Step shred the peloton at will but Gert took to the front with 350 m to go and never looked back.

What's that clanking noise...? Oh, it's Steegmans approaching.