Kloeden closes the deal

Euskaltel's Fernandez overtook the Australian sprinter O'Grady (CSC) in a final surge to the line to collect his first professional victory after the 177-km voyage from Civitella del Tronto to San Benedetto.

Italy's Gabriele Balducci finished third in the mass sprint finale.

Kloeden, the winner in Paris-Nice in 2000 and a two-time podium finisher in the Tour de France, claimed the overall lead in Monday's mountainous penultimate stage after staving off an attack from former T-Mobile team-mate Kim Kirchen.

The German Astana leader finished four seconds ahead of Luxembourg's Kirchen to win the final general classification, while Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov took third at 13 seconds behind his victorious team-mate.

Kloeden finished second to compatriot and rival Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner) in the critical fifth stage time trial to cement his position as race favourite.

The victory was Kloeden's 15th of his 10-year professional career.

"This is a great win for me and the Astana team. I won Paris-Nice in 2000 and now it's nice to have won the other big spring stage race," the 31-year-old told reporters.

"To be honest I started the race thinking I'd use it as training for the rest of the season but I felt good, our team was strong and so we raced the final stages to win.

"I won by only a few seconds but I was confident during the last stage and contested the first intermediary sprint to pick up an extra second.

"I have to thank the whole team for helping me win and I even got a call from the President of Kazakhstan congratulating me on my victory," Kloeden added.

Kloeden said that neither he nor Vino would challenge this weekend's opening spring classic, the Milan-Sanremo, because they didn't want to risk injury.

"I'm not going to ride Milan-Sanremo and neither is my teammate Vinokourov because we're stage race riders and wouldn't have a chance against all the sprinters," he said.

"I also don't want to risk crashing and ruining my season because the Tour de France is my big objective of the year. We're going to take on Ivan Basso and hopefully by riding together, one of us can win the Tour de France."