Australian Michael Rogers has claimed second place as Russian Vladimir Karpets won the Tour of Catalonia in a morale-boosting win ahead of the Tour de France.

The last stage, from Lloret de Mar to Barcelona, was taken by Samuel Sanchez of Spain who broke away on the uphill finish at Mont Tibidabo in Barcelona for a solo win.

Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov was second with Russian Denis Menchov in third place.

Karpets finished in the same time as Menchov for sixth place while Rogers was seventh to finish 40 seconds behind Karpets in the final standings.

Stage five winner Menchov took third overall, tied on time with Rogers.

"I've shown I'm ready for July," Karpets, who rides for the Caisse D'Epargne team, told reporters.

Karpets said team mate and Tour de France favourite Oscar Pereiro of Spain was getting "better and better".

"We'll be the team to beat in France," he said. "It was a tough finale, a four kilometre climb, but I just managed to stay close to Menchov.

"The hardest day, though, was to Andorra on Thursday, when I had no team mates with me for the last 25 kilometres."

"I thought we'd lost the race then, but luckily I could pull back time again in the mountain time-trial the next day."

Italian Davide Rebellin of Italy leads overall in the ProTour series.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP