Mads Pedersen won the 13th stage of the Giro d'Italia on Friday as Isaac Del Toro maintained his lead in the battle for the overall title.
Lidl-Trek rider Pedersen burst to victory in the final few hundred metres, holding off Wout van Aert in a thrilling end to a punchy 180 kilometres of riding from Rovigo to Vicenza.
"I went a bit earlier than I really wanted to but on such a hard uphill final like this sometimes it's okay to go early because everyone has burning legs the last 100 metres," said Pedersen.
Pedersen claimed his fourth stage of this year's Giro while wearing the sprint jersey, closing in on the six wins Tadej Pogacar racked up on his way to triumph at last year's edition of the Italian Grand Tour.
"I'm just happy with this one and adding another 50 points to the 'ciclomino' (sprint) jersey so let's see how it goes," added Pederson.
"It's still far to Rome but now I'm just overwhelmed about winning again."
Del Toro came in third and leads his UAE teammate Juan Ayuso by 38 seconds in the general classification, extending the gap over his title rivals.
Christian Scaroni was the last of the breakaway riders to be eventually caught with 10km left, on the second of two laps to Vicenza, setting up an engaging finale with a tough climb at the finish.
Romain Bardet made a bold attack with 9km to go, pulling fifteen seconds away alongside Pedersen's teammate Mathias Vacek.
Both were caught in the final kilometre by the peloton, and Pedersen rocketed away from the pack on a tough final climb to the line.
Saturday's 14th stage is another largely flat run from nearby Treviso, 195km to Nova Gorica across Italy's border with Slovenia.
A 16km climb awaits the overall pretenders on Sunday, albeit 20km from the finish line, but it will provide a hint of what is to come in the final week.
The time gaps across the top 10 riders should be shaken up from stage 16 with five monster climbs and a summit finish as the 21-day marathon enters the Alps.
This is followed by another mountain run that is an invitation to the downhill daredevils with two huge descents on stage 17.
The decider might be stage 19 with another five-mountain slog, while day 20 has a giant 18.5km climb at 9.5 per cent gradient to over 2000m altitude.
Team UAE's Ayuso and Del Toro have time, youth and a strong posse in hand, but four former winners are lurking with intent.
Pure climber Simon Yates of Visma is only 42 seconds behind Ayuso, but Richard Carapaz of EF, Primoz Roglic of Red Bull and Egan Bernal of Ineos all have impressive records on their side too in a wide open final week.