A stunning attack from Richie Porte just failed to snatch the Tour Down Under lead from fellow Australian cycling star Rohan Dennis.
Team Sky's Porte again showed he is back in form by winning the Santos Tour's decisive stage at Willunga for the second-straight year.
But Dennis has retained the overall lead by just two seconds and should hold on through Sunday's final stage in Adelaide.
In a symbolic changing of the guard for Australian cycling, Dennis' BMC team-mate Cadel Evans could not go with the fierce attack from Porte.
The only Australian to win the Tour de France had to settle for fourth on the stage and will finish his last WorldTour race in third place overall.
Porte attacked a select group of about 20 riders with 1.2km left on the 3.5km Willunga Hill climb.
Only Dennis could stay with him and Porte beat him across the line by nine seconds in front of a massive crowd.
Dennis had started the day seven seconds ahead of Evans and 15 up on Porte in the overall standings.
When time bonuses at the finish were factored in, Porte improved from fifth to just shy of the race lead.
Evans dropped to third, 20 seconds behind his BMC team-mate.
When Dennis crossed the line, he thought the worst.
"To be honest, I was thinking "s***, I lost it' ... by a couple of seconds," he said.
"But I was told two or three minutes later.
"I went from being somewhat depressed to overwhelmed within point one of a second, I think.
"I was over the moon - just looking for my team-mates."
Porte had mixed emotions - rapt to win the stage, but admitting disappointment he had just fallen short of snatching the race lead.
"To be honest it is a big disappointment - two seconds - but credit to him," Porte said.
"I'm very happy with how today went."
Evans also had mixed emotions, given he has no chance of a fairytale end to his legendary cycling career.
He will retire from professional cycling on February 1.
"All-in-all, I certainly didn't want to concede a position on GC - that's not what I like to do at all," he said.
"But overall my goal is to be a professional and get the best result with my team of course.
"I really got everything out of myself this week."
Dennis is supremely confident that his small margin over Porte will be enough on Sunday's last stage.
"If he sprints and I sprint, there's no reason I won't beat him," Dennis said.
And Dennis also said there had been no problems within BMC over the last couple of days, given he and Evans were first and second in the overall standings.
"There has been no difficulty, no anger, no bad feelings at all," he said.
"Cadel has been very, very happy with how I've been riding."
The 151.5km stage featured Australians Jack Bobridge (UniSA) and Jordan Kerby (Drapac) in a breakaway with New Zealander Greg Henderson (Lotto Soudal).
Bobridge continued his strong form in this Tour, leading by himself up the first of the two Willunga Hill climbs.
But the peloton were together by the foot of the last climb.
Porte admitted that, in hindsight, he should have attacked a little earlier.
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