Australian sprint star Michael Matthews has opened up a three-second lead in cycling's eight-day Paris-Nice race.
Matthews, who won the race prologue on Sunday, kept the leader's yellow jersey after Monday's 198km first stage ahead of Holland's Tom Dumoulin with Patrick Bevin of New Zealand in third place.
The 25-year-old world championship silver medallist finished the stage in fifth place after French rider Arnaud Demare produced a late sprint to clinch victory.
Matthews extended his overall lead thanks to two intermediate bonus seconds in the last 15km.
"It was a hard day all day," said Matthews.
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"I'm glad we had a super strong ORICA-GreenEDGE team today to take care of the race and bring back the four escapees. The main focus today was on defending the jersey.
"It would be nice to win a stage but the jersey was the main focus."
The 198km ride started under snowflakes after a minute's silence in memory of French rider Romain Guyot, who recently died in a training accident.
Riders face a tougher, longer 213.5km stage on Tuesday.
