NICE, France: Tony Gallopin took command of the Paris-Nice with a solo success on Nice’s celebrated Promenade des Anglais in Saturday’s sixth and penultimate stage.

The French hope goes into Sunday’s closing time-trial with a 35 second lead over Australia’s Richie Porte, and 37s over the former holder of the yellow jersey, Polish rival Michal Kwiatkowski.

Gallopin, 26, seized control of the grueling 180.5 km ride from Vente a full 30km from the finish.

The Lotto rider was followed across the line half a minute back by a group led by Slovenian Simon Spilak and Portugal’s Rui Costa.

Porte, and the Briton Geraint Thomas, who had left Kwiatkowski trailing in the last of the day’s six climbs, hit the deck on the run down into Nice.

The race concludes Sunday with a 9.6km time-trial on the col d’Eze.

Poels at the double

In Rome, Team Sky rider Wouter Poels capped a thrilling solo attack with victory and the overall leader’s jersey after the fourth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico on Saturday.

Poels, claiming his first win of the season, countered Italian Giampaolo Caruso after the Katusha rider tried to distance a small leading peloton on the final meters of the Crispiero climb whose summit is 5km from the finish line.

The tall Dutchman went on to hold off a small group of chasers to cross the finish line solo and take the leader’s blue jersey from Belgian Greg Van Avermaet (BMC).

“It’s really unbelievable,” Poels told Italian television Rai.

“I had good legs, so it’s nice if you can attack like this and take the victory.”

Poels came over the finish line 14secs ahead of Rigoberto Uran, who sprinted ahead of a small group containing Joaquin Rodriguez, Alexis Vuillermoz and defending champion Alberto Contador among others.

The pace of Vuillermoz and AG2R teammate Rinaldo Nocentini on the final kilometers of the Crispiero climb proved fatal to any hopes Van Avermaet had of holding on to the blue jersey for another day.

Their speed at the front left the Belgian trailing off the pace before he finished over two minutes behind Poels.