The Trek–Segafredo rider managed to pull clear of current race leader Grace Brown of FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon-SRAM Racing in the sprint finish, after a gruelling 7.2km climb in south-east Wales.

As a result, the Italian earned several crucial bonus seconds on top of her final time of 3 hours 1min 49sec, meaning that both she and Brown head in to the final stage level on an overall time of 15 hours 40min 56sec.

Niewiadoma, who finished second on the queen's stage, will also be in firm contention as the Polish rider sits just two seconds behind the front two in the standings.

"I feel like I won already a stage when we won with Lizzie [Deignan] in 2019 but it’s a very nice feeling," Borghini said.

"It was very windy up the climb and mostly a head wind, so it was really hard to make the selection. 

"In the end, I just trusted my sprint and I went full gas at 150 metres to go. 

"I just wanted to win because I wanted to pay off all the work that my team did - we were really committed from the very beginning of the race. 

"At the moment I want to to relax and enjoy the victory, and then tomorrow is tomorrow. 

"We will think about it tomorrow."

Switzerland's Elise Chabbey is on course to become Queen of the Mountain for a second time - she now sits on 50 points, sixteen clear of her closest challenger, after strong showings on Pontyates Hill and Crwbin early in the stage.

In the team classifications, Canyon-SRAM Racing now hold a healthy 44-second advantage over Team BikeExchange-Jayco.

The deciding final stage of the 2022 Women's Tour will be an 142.9km ride from Chipping Norton to Oxford city centre, where a potentially-decisive 16 bonus seconds will be available.