French cyclist Rudy Molard won Friday's sixth stage of the Paris-Nice cycling race while Spanish rider Luis Leon Sanchez kept the leader's yellow jersey.
Molard became the fourth Frenchman to win a stage at this year's event, breaking away from a small group of nine riders about one kilometre from the finish line.
He was two seconds ahead of Belgian rider Tim Wellens with French rider Julian Alaphilippe third.
Sanchez finished the stage in fourth, also two seconds behind, despite having to change bikes.
He now leads Alaphilippe by 22 seconds overall and is 26 seconds ahead of Marc Sole, who is in third place with two stages remaining
"With this incident, the changing of the bike, I have to thank my teammates once again. It was very difficult," Sanchez said.
"But I stayed relaxed and I knew what I needed to do."
Wout Poels, who had been 15 sec behind Sanchez overnight, crashed out of contention after falling off his bike about 7km from the end of the hilly 198-kilometre journey to Vence in the Alpes-Maritimes region.
The Team Sky rider from the Netherlands appeared to hurt his shoulder in the spill.
"I'm sorry for Woult Poels crashing, he was in very good form these days," Sanchez said.
"But all of my rivals are dangerous, even if I have a small advance in terms of time."
Saturday's seventh stage takes the riders over 175 kilometres from Nice to the village commune of Valdeblore La Colmiane in the Alpes-Maritimes region.
It features five climbs, ending with a gruelling 16.3-kilometre ascent at an average gradient of 6.2 per cent.
Known as "The Race to the Sun," the Paris-Nice ends on Sunday.
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