Voeckler victorious at Cholet-Pays De Loire with late attack

Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) has won the second leg of the French Cup, the 24th GP Cholet-Pays de Loire, less than 50 kilometres away from his home in Vendée.

The French champion anticipated the bunch sprint by breaking away solo just before the 3km to go mark. He gained a 10-second lead and barely held off a charging peloton at the finish line. It was a fully French podium with young guns Tony Gallopin (Cofidis) and Benjamin Giraud from the new Continental team La Pomme-Marseille taking second and third place.

"After my two stage wins at Paris-Nice, I realized yesterday at the Classic Loire-Atlantique that it was difficult to win with the benchmark of race favourite," Voeckler said in Cholet. "In the evening I spoke to Anthony Charteau who told me 'if you're marked so much, just wait for the last three kilometres'."

Voeckler followed the advice of his teammate who has been sidelined since he dislocated his shoulder at the Tour of South Africa. Charteau, who was the king of the mountains at last year's Tour de France, will resume racing at the Criterium International next week while Voeckler will battle in Belgium at the GP E3.

"I had my tactic in mind and I didn't change," Voeckler said. "I felt the crowd behind me and it helped me drastically."

But the crowd expressed their displeasure with the French champion's obligation to wear the white jersey as leader of the UCI Europe Tour rather than his iconic blue-white-red national champion's jersey. Gilles Bourdouleix, the mayor of Cholet, who is also Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme's brother-in-law, commented on the issue. "This is an insult to our national colours, they should be respected," he said.

However, the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire was another popular success with big crowds on the roadsides in the vineyards of the Anjou region. There was a long-lasting breakaway with Rafal Majka (Saxo Bank SunGard), Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil-DCM), Cédric Pineau (FDJ), Jérôme Cousin (Team Europcar), Jimmy Casper (Saur-Sojasun), Johannes Frohlinger (Skil-Shimano), Preben Van Hecke (TopSport Vlaanderen) and Armindo Fonseca and Laurent Pichon (Bretagne Schuller).

Van Hecke crossed each of the categorised climbs in first position to secure the mountain price victory. The peloton allowed them a maximum lead of 5:30 but their advantage went down to two minutes at the beginning of the last hour of racing under the action of Cofidis, who didn't have a rider in the break.

With 20km to go, soon after the regrouping, Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar) and Pieter Jacobs (TopSport Vlaanderen) attacked. The pair stayed away for 15 kilometres with the Belgian resisting the peloton longer than his breakaway companion. Moments after Jacobs was absorbed Voeckler launched his spectacular and decisive attack.