Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) both knew the pain of losing Paris-Nice on the final day of racing, and this time it was Yates looking to turn the tables on his more fancied rival in the mountainous 115 kilometre stage around Nice.
The Slovenian star had memories of last year's final stage double crash that saw him concede the overall to Max Schachmann, and Yates himself had gone from race leader to second in 2019, when Marc Soler was part of an attack that left Yates ruing a potential victory.
Seemingly leaving little to chance, Jumbo-Visma controlled things from the front of the race early, allowing no breakaways to gain a significant advantage on the peloton. They set a consistent high tempo, which resulted in a drastically reduced peloton, but also a significant reduction in their own team.
Omar Fraile (INEOS Grenadiers) went to set a hard tempo at the front of the race on the day's penultimate climb, Cote de Peille, dropping Jumbo-Visma's Rohan Dennis and Steven Kruijswijk, leaving just Wout van Aert in protection of the race leader.
That was the precursor to an attack, with Dani Martínez (INEOS Grenadiers) launching a couple of strong surges, with only Roglič, van Aert, Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) and Simon Yates able to follow, with Yates' brother, Adam (INEOS Grenadiers) and Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) the most notable riders unable to match them.
With still 50 kilometres to go, van Aert set a steady tempo over the remaining ascent of the Cote de Peille, and lead them down the descent. The downhill saw Martínez suffer a mechanical, frustratingly having to drop from the front group.
On the final ascent of the day, the Col d'Eze, Yates waited until the steepest slopes to attack, immediately gaining a gap on his rivals. He quickly pushed out his lead to 20 seconds, almost half of the 47 seconds he trailed by at the start of the day to Roglič.
Van Aert had been dropped initially by the surge, but returned, with Quintana dropping off the pace after going too deep on his previous attacks. Van Aert took up the pace for Roglič and managed to hold the gap to Yates over the last few kilometres of the ascent of the Col d'Eze.
He then went about slowly clawing back the lead to the runaway Yates on the descent and flat run into Nice, but while he managed to help save Roglič's overall race win, Yates claimed the stage, with van Aert second and Roglič third, just nine seconds behind.
"I don't go without a bit of drama," said Roglič at the finish. "It was super-hard, but I have to admit, but easier than last year, and I am more happy! Big thanks to my whole team, especially Wout [Van Aert] at the end. He's half-human, half-motor. Wout can do everything.
"I was definitely not feeling strong enough. It was too steep, I didn't have power. I was really suffering and fighting over the climb to limit the losses. Luckily I knew that Wout had a super day, he was really a big, big help go with me all the way to the finish."
Yates took second overall to go with his stage win, 29 seconds behind Roglič, with Martínez two minutes and 37 seconds off the pace as he finished in a group over a minute and a half down on the final day of racing.
"I just wanted the stage today," he said afterwards. "I think the GC was already too far away anyway. For me to take that much time back today it would've been a really big ask. So yeah, I'm just happy with the stage win.
"I'm not going to win a sprint again Van Aert or Roglič, so I had to try something, and I wasn't feeling great either.
"I wasn't confident to make an advantage, but if you don't try you never know, so I tried, there was no real tactic."
WorldTour racing will continue on SBS with the Volta a Catalunya, the Spanish mountainous race LIVE on SBS and SBS On Demand from March 21-17.
