Richie Porte won the Paris-Nice for the second time in three years on Sunday after winning the final stage on Sunday.

The Team Sky rider was 36 seconds adrift of Tony Gallopin heading into the time trial at Col d'Eze, but was well fancied to win the title on the seventh and last day of competition.

Australian Porte duly regained the title he won in 2013 by clocking 20:232 seconds over the 9.5km course a day after crashing twice on the penultimate stage. 

Gallopin had raised hopes that he could become the first French rider to win the race since Laurent Jalabert in 1997 when he won Saturday's Vence to Nice stage to take the yellow jersey.

Porte had triumphed on the ascent of the Col d'Eze two years ago when he was only four seconds short of the record time set by Bradley Wiggins and, despite being 1.21 secs slower on Sunday, he was able to celebrate another victory.

Katusha's Simon Spilak was second in the final stage, 13 seconds slower than Porte, while Rui Costa was 24 seconds back from the new champion.

Lotto-Soudal rider Gallopin was brought back to down to earth as he finished sixth overall, 1:03 mins adrift of Porte.

Porte finished 30 seconds ahead of Michal Kwiatkowski, Spilak and Costa in the overall standings.

Runner-up Kwiatkowski also claimed the best young rider white journey following an impressive week, while Michael Matthews won the green jersey.