Triple Tour de France champion and Team Saxo Bank-SunGard rider Alberto Contador, fighting to clear his name of a doping offence, is set for Tour of Catalunya victory on Sunday after maintaining his 23-second lead in the penultimate stage.

The Spaniard, who learned on Thursday that the International Cycling Union (UCI) would appeal against the Spanish federation's decision to exonerate him, finished safely in the main pack in the stage won by compatriot Jose Rojas.

Contador failed a dope test for the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol during last year's Tour but has denied any wrongdoing and said it came from contaminated meat.

With one short, flat stage remaining from Parets dels Valles to Barcelona on Sunday, and a 23-second advantage over American Levi Leipheimer to his name, the Saxo Bank rider said he was pleased to have got through a deceptively difficult stage.

"It was a hard day, very fast until a break could actually get away, then things calmed down," Contador told reporters after the stage finish.

"At least we got some help controlling the race from other teams, which wasn't the case yesterday.

"This is proving to be a tough race, when there are breaks, they always contain riders who are threats to my lead.

"The stages are so long too, this is going to be a good workout for upcoming races on my calendar."

Contador said he was not prepared to think of himself as the overall winner yet even though Vuelta a Catalunya's hardest stages were behind him.

"Tomorrow will be fast as well, and I'm pretty sure there will be some more attacks."

"You have to be extra-careful, too, when the race route goes into a large city like Barcelona."

"As ever, I'm taking this on the day by day," Contador concluded.

"Once again, we succeeded in keeping the (peloton) in one piece but it's hard work out there in order to keep the (leader's) jersey. Unfortunately, André (Steensen) crashed in the side of the road after being blocked by another rider after 70 kilometers of the stage but he managed to fight his way back to the peloton to finish his job in front of the pack," Team Saxo Bank-SunGard sports director Dan Frost told Roadcycling.com and Roadcycling.mobi after today's stage.

"Tomorrow, there's a short stage that with 99.9 percent certainty is going to end in a bunch sprint," Frost added.

After four podium finishes in previous stages, Rojas was delighted with his bunch sprint victory.

"The last kilometer was very complicated, there was a lot of pushing and shoving in the pack, but I kept calm and managed to stay out of trouble," he said.

"Now I want to see if I can make it two out of two wins with another victory tomorrow."

The Team Movistar sprinter secured the win ahead of Thursday's stage winner, Portugal's Manuel Cardoso of Team RadioShack, with yesterday's stage winner, Samuel Dumoulin of France in third.

Download Roadcycling.com's new cycling iPhone app online at http://itunes.apple.com/app/roadcycling-cycling-app/id395146493