Simon Yates went solo to win stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia but Egan Bernal increased his overall lead with two days to go.
Yates showed he is still very much up for the fight in the battle for the maglia rosa on Friday, climbing to victory in Alpe di Mera.
Englishman Yates went on his own six-and-a-half kilometres from the end of the lung-busting 166 km ride from Abbiategrasso and had more than enough in the legs to pull away.
The Team BikeExchange rider moved two minutes and 49 seconds adrift of Bernal, who crossed the line in third place behind Joao Almeida.
Bernal edged his advantage over second-placed Damiano Caruso in the general classification up to two minutes and 29 seconds, but Yates made another statement ahead of a brutal penultimate stage in the mountains on Saturday.
The Colombian initially reacted well when Yates surged away on a steep final ascent to the finish, but was then clearly suffering.
A fourth Giro stage win for Yates, adding to the three he won in 2018, leaves the race nicely poised ahead of such a tough stage 20 at high altitude and a time trial to finish on Sunday.
INEOS Grenadiers rider Bernal was left to fend for himself with 2.4km to go as Daniel Martinez was unable to stay with him and had to dig in two days after Yates also made time on him in the mountains.
Yates said: "I'm really happy. The team did a great job right from the start of the stage, a fantastic team effort and I'm happy to have finished it off.
"I really wanted to win a stage in this Giro, I'm not sure where I am now in the general classification but I'm really happy about this win."
STAGE RESULT
1. Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) 4:02:55
2. Joao Almeida (Deceuninck–Quick-Step) +00:11
3. Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) +00:04
4. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious)
5. Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana–Premier Tech)
CLASSIFICATION STANDINGS
General Classification
1. Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) 77:10:18
2. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) +02:29
3. Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) +02:49
Points Classification
1. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) 135
2. Davide Cimolai (Israel Start-Up Nation) 113
3. Fernando Gaviria (UAE Emirates) 110
King of the Mountains
1. Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R Citroen Team) 180
2. Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) 121
3. Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) 83
Pogacar fends off Vingegaard for 'dream' triumph at Paris-Nice
Tadej Pogacar achieved a "dream" victory in the Paris-Nice as the two-time Tour de France champion powered to a final-stage win on Sunday.
The 24-year-old Slovenian produced a thrilling solo surge on the 117.2-kilometre eighth stage, chiefly contested in the hills surrounding Nice.
His race-winning move came on the final climb, the Col d'Eze, as the UAE Team Emirates man left his rivals to scrap it out for second place before tearing away to the finish line on the Promenade des Anglais.
Pogacar took the stage by 33 seconds. Jonas Vingegaard (Team Jumbo-Visma) was second to cross the line on the sea front, with Pogacar taking the overall tour victory by 53 seconds from France's David Gaudu (Groupama–FDJ).
Vingegaard, the reigning Tour de France champion, picked up third place on this occasion in the general classification standings.
Pogacar won the one-day Clasica Jaen Paraiso Interior in Spain early last month, and then went on to dominate the five-day Vuelta a Andalucia.
The latest success is a further step towards the grand tours that await later in the year, with Pogacar electing to race at this event, on the roads where he does much of his training, rather than head to the Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy. That race, running concurrently, was won on Sunday by Primoz Roglic after Pogacar's victories there in 2021 and 2022.
"It was always my goal, my dream, to win Paris-Nice as well and now that I did it, it's incredible," Pogacar said on Eurosport.
"They say attack is the best defence and I really know these roads. A lot of training is done here, so I knew exactly how my legs were and on the final climb how much I could spend to come to the top and I calculated great."
Pogacar will turn his attention to next Saturday's Milan-San Remo one-day classic, satisfied to have got the better of a strong field.
"The competition here was really, really huge and to be alongside David Gaudu and Jonas Vingegaard on the podium is special because they are really top-class riders," Pogacar said. "If I don't win anything until the end of the season it's still not bad, so I can be more relaxed."
Jamaican cyclist Llori Sharpe re-signs for another year with European Cycling Team Canyon/SRAM Generation
Having signed a one-year contract in January 2023, Jamaica’s female cyclist Llori Sharpe will depart the island next week for Europe where she will join her teammates from Paraguay, Germany, Namibia, Rwanda, Algeria, and Austria on the CANYON//SRAM Generation Team set to participate in 21 races across Europe through to mid-September.
Six of the 21 events are two-to-six-day stage races covering 250 km to 700km.
2023 is expected to be a busy year for the young Jamaican as she is also expected to join the Jamaican team for the Pan American Road Championships from April 17-23 in Panama City. The Pan American Championships will qualify the top 19 male and female places for spots at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Since returning from Europe at the end of the 2022 season, Sharpe has spent the latter part of last year studying at the UWI Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. She will complete her final semester while in Europe. She returned home to Jamaica in December where she had been training in preparation for her first competitive assignment on March 26.
Sharpe earned the first two podium finishes for the CANYON team in March 2022.
Legendary sprinter Cavendish makes Astana move
Mark Cavendish has joined Astana for a 2023 campaign in which he will be hoping to make history at the Tour de France.
Legendary sprinter Cavendish left Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl last year, but the Brit will continue his illustrious career with Kazakh team Astana.
The 37-year-old from the Isle of Man was not selected for the 2022 Tour de France, denying him the opportunity to surpass a record tally of 34 stage wins in the most prestigious Grand Tour race that he shares with the great Eddy Merckx.
Cavendish will have high hopes of taking the record outright this year with his new team.
He said: "I am really excited for this adventure. I raced with Alexandr Vinokurov for many years, and now I'm racing with his two boys!
"I remember when they were children the same age as my own, dreaming to be bike racers.
"Astana is going to be a great place to be successful, with a strong team led by Alexandr, a champion on the bike and a gentleman off the bike.
"I've enjoyed a long career already, but the joy of riding my bike and the hunger to continue winning are as bright as ever.
"So I'm looking forward to being part of a successful team, whether working with the team for wins, crossing the line first myself, or cheering on my team-mates. As always, the objective will be for us to stand on the top podium."
While Cavendish was overlooked for the Tour de France, he was able to win the Milano-Torino as well as Giro d'Italia, Tour of Oman and UAE Tour stages.
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