Damiano Caruso became the first rider to win a mountain stage in two different grand tours in 2021 as he triumphed at the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday.
On the back of a second-place finish at the Giro d'Italia, Caruso took stage nine, holding off pressure from Enric Mas and general classification leader Primoz Roglic in the process.
Caruso, who won a mountain stage at the Giro, finished 65 seconds clear of two-time defending champion Roglic, with the Slovenian Olympic gold medallist outsprinting Mas to beat the Spaniard by a second.
Roglic's lead in the GC now stands at 28 seconds, with the race's first rest day coming up on Monday.
"We deserve it eh? It was a hard day, again super hot, and some big climbs. I survived it and I'm looking forward for tomorrow," Roglic said at the finish in Alto de Velefique.
"For sure our guys did a great job. INEOS [Grenadiers] put a hard pace on the long climb. It was hard and then here at the end it was quite fast with a big explosion. Luckily, I had OK legs so I could finish it.
"It's a beginning, now we have the rest day, and we just need to stay in one piece healthy with the whole team and then we'll be looking for the next stages."
Mas sits second in the GC standings, with his Movistar team-mate Miguel Angel Lopez almost a minute behind, ahead of Jack Haig.
Miguel Angel Lopez is one minute and 21 seconds behind Roglic in third, with Jack Haig one minute and 42 seconds back in fourth and Giro champion Egan Bernal in fifth.
STAGE RESULT
1. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) 5:03:14
2. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) +1:05
3. Enric Mas (Movistar) +1:06
4. Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) +1:44
5. Miguel Angel Lopez (Movistar) +1:44
CLASSIFICATION STANDINGS
General Classification
1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) 34:18:53
2. Enric Mas (Movistar) +0:28
3. Miguel Angel Lopez (Movistar) +1:21
Points Classification
1. Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) 180
2. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) 164
3. Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) 74
King of the Mountains
1. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) 28
2. Romain Bardet (Team DSM) 22
3. Pavel Sivakov (INEOS Grenadiers) 16
What's next?
A rest day in Almeria comes on Monday, with the Vuelta kicking back into gear on Tuesday with a 189m route from Roquetas de Mar to Rincon de la Victoria. It is mostly flat, but a category two climb will separate the contenders before a descent to the finish line.
Bernal back in hospital but escapes fractures after Volta a Catalunya crash
Egan Bernal has escaped significant damage but will remain in hospital for treatment following a clash at the Volta a Catalunya.
Two-time Grand Tour champion Bernal was making his UCI World Tour return at this week's event in Spain, which is led by Primoz Roglic after six stages.
However, Bernal will not be finishing the race after he abandoned on Saturday following a crash.
Bernal had not raced in a World Tour event since 2021, having missed the majority of 2022 due to a serious training crash in his homeland of Colombia.
The 26-year-old required surgery on his spine, while he also suffered two collapsed lungs, fractures in his right leg and kneecap, a broken thumb and a lost tooth in a collision with a parked bus.
Fortunately, Bernal has avoided any such injuries on this occasion.
In an update on social media, INEOS Grenadiers explained Bernal had been taken to hospital following the crash, but "imaging showed no signs of fractures".
The statement added: "Further medical assessment will continue over the next few days and treatment for skin abrasions he sustained."
It is the second abandonment in as many races for Bernal, who suffered a knee injury during the Vuelta a San Juan.
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.
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