Going into the last of nine climbs of the stage, the Discovery Channel pro cycling team — they'd already taken stages on Thursday and Friday — had Levi Leipheimer and Tom Danielson in a lead breakaway at the Paris-Nice bicycle race.
But they were unable to muster a stage victory or help teammate Alberto Contador make up 6 seconds to take the overall lead in the week-long race that ends Sunday.
A hard charging Spaniard, Luis León Sánchez of Caisse d'Epargne won the 120-mile stage in Cannes and Italian Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) finished in a trailing group with Contador to maintain his General Classification lead.
Breakaway
Early on, it appeared that Discovery's two Americans might either take the stage or help teammate Contador if he bridged the gap to the breakaway from the peloton.
Contador got into second place in the GC on Thursday on a mountaintop finish. On Saturday, he caught the breakaway and again proved his climbing prowess on the final climb.
Contador had a 22 second lead for a while, enough to put him into first place overall, but other riders, including Rebellin, who do better on the flats caught Contador on the flats in Cannes and Sanchez passed for a solo win by 28 seconds over the rest of the field.
Last stage
Sunday's final stage is an 80-mile killer in the mountains around Cannes that features one Category 2 and three Category 1 climbs.
Rebellin is going to need plenty of gas in the tank to hold off Contador, 6 seconds behind and Sanchez, 16 seconds behind as well as other challengers — 15 riders in the peloton are less than a minute behind.
The closest Americans are 2005 Paris-Nice winner Bobby Julich (Team CSC) in 27th at 1:52 behind; Chris Horner (Predictor-Lotto) in 28th at 2:58 and Leipheimer in 29th at 4:48.
The Versus network (formerly OLN) will televise taped highlights of the Paris-Nice bike race Sunday at 5 p.m. (ET).
More results at VeloNews.
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