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Vincenzo Nibali escaped to victory on Sunday’s fifth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico cycling race over 195km from Martinsicuro to Prati di Tivo.
Nibali surged clear of his rivals on the mountain-top finish with Roman Kreuziger and Chris Horner coming in 16 seconds down.
Last year’s winner and Tour de France champion Cadel Evans finished more than 10 minutes down and dropped out of overall contention.
American Horner did just enough to hold onto the leader’s blue jersey, maintaining a five-second lead over Czech Kreuziger.
But Nibali’s victory, plus the bonus seconds on offer at the finish line, moved him up to third overall, just 12 seconds back.
The top riders marked each other on the final climb up to Prati di Tivo until Nibali broke for home with 4km remaining, securing the victory that had eluded him the day before when out-sprinted by Liquigas team-mate Peter Sagan.
The day’s break was made by Jens Debusschere, Egoi Martinez and Kristoff Goddaert and at one stage they had more than 10 minutes on the field.
Tha gap quickly dropped on the final brutal climb and with 10km to go it was down to a 25-man lead peloton.
Joaquim Rodriguez was the first to try his luck from there followed by Paolo Tiralongo.
When Nibali attacked he soon streaked past Tirlongo, who fell back into the Horner-led chase group.
Nibali had a 26-second gap at one stage but Horner worked hard to limit his losses on the day and keep the leader’s jersey.
COL D’EZE, France, March 11 (AP) – Bradley Wiggins beat Lieuwe Westra by two seconds in the decisive mountain time trial to win the Paris-Nice race for the first time on Sunday.
Wiggins was leading the Dutchman by six seconds overnight and held firm in the 9.6km uphill dash from Nice to Col d’Eze to become the first Briton to win the race since Tom Simpson in 1967.
Wiggins beat Westra by eight seconds overall.
Alejandro Valverde had 18 seconds to make up on Wiggins, and that proved too much as he slipped 1:10 behind overall, but the Spaniard did enough to finish third.
The 31-year-old Wiggins is expected to be among the contenders to win the Tour de France later this year.
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