His closest opponent, Britain's Simon Yates, riding for Team BikeExchange-Jayco, took victory on the final stage of the race by nine seconds, winning a race for the first time in 10 months.

It was not enough, though, to deny Roglič victory.

Starting and finishing in Nice over 115.6 kilometres, Roglič went with an attack with 50km to go, managing to stick with the pace of Spanish rider Omar Fraile of Ineos Grenadiers.

Fraile was making the move on behalf of his team-mate Daniel Martínez of Colombia, a minute off the general classification time of the leader in third overall.

Britain's Adam Yates, the twin brother of Simon, although he rides for Ineos Grenadiers, was sitting in fourth overall too, 1min 50sec down on the lead, and another of Fraile's team-mates.

Simon Yates went into the final stage in second place, 47 seconds adrift of Roglič.

Fraile climbed Côte de Peille, with only a few matching his pace including Roglič, his team-mate Belgian Wout van Aert, Adam and Simon Yates, Martínez and Arkéa–Samsic rider Nairo Quintana of Colombia.

First to go was Adam Yates, before Fraile dropped off 10km after his move.

With 31km to go, Martínez was stranded between the leaders and the chasers when he suffered a back wheel puncture; and was caught by the chasing group 10km later.

Simon Yates made an important surge with 19km from the line, pulling out a sizable gap and putting Roglič under pressure.

If the Briton crossed the line first, he would receive a bonus of 10 seconds gained, meaning the gap at approximately 20 seconds on the road was looking like a threat with the Slovenian only holding 47 in hand.

But as Yates began to descend, the pair of Van Aert and Roglič pulled him in and dropped Quintana from the chasers.

In the end, the gap was brought down to nine seconds as Yates crossed the line in 2 hours 52min 59sec.

The gap between the pair was 29 seconds in the general classification, with Martínez claiming third ahead of team-mate Adam Yates and Quintana.