Cycling: Paris-Nice: Daily winner Yates takes over Yellow before the final stage

British professional cyclist Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) has won the royal stage of the Paris-Nice long-distance ride and is entering the final stage as the new overall leader. The 25-year-old, last year’s winner of the Tour de France youth classification, won the competition on the demanding seventh section over 175 km from Nice to Valdeblore La Colmiane 1500 m above sea level.

In the overall standings, Yates now leads with eleven seconds ahead of the Spaniard Jon Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida), his brother and team mate Gorka is another second behind. The former front runner Luis Leon Sanchez (Spain) showed weaknesses at the end of the race and came to the finish with a big gap.

The 76. The third edition of the long-distance trip ends on Sunday with the last 110 km section with start and finish in Nice.