Voeckler victorious in Belleville

Once again at Paris-Nice the long breakaway foiled the best efforts of the sprinters, as French champion Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) won stage four from a four-man break in Belleville.

Voeckler outkicked Rémi Pauriol (FDJ), Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana) for the victory, while Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervelo) won the field sprint for fifth place 13 seconds later. The quartet were the four survivors of a five-man break which was on the attack for nearly the entire 191km stage.

"I'm so happy it worked out today," Voeckler said. "The stage win was my only goal. I didn't break away for the polka dot jersey, I won it at Paris-Nice in 2007 and it didn't change my life.

"I'll give my best until the end but this Paris-Nice is already a successful one for me. Now I can definitely say that I'm having my best early season ever."

One day after surrendering his leader's jersey to Matt Goss (HTC-Highroad), De Gendt rode himself back into the yellow jersey in an improbable break which lasted nearly the entire stage. The 24-year-old Belgian won both of the intermediate sprints en route to the finish, picked up bonus seconds at the finish line and bested the peloton by 13 seconds to secure a return to the leader's jersey. De Gendt now leads breakaway companion Voeckler by 10 seconds and Pauriol by 16 seconds overall.

Overnight leader Goss dropped to fourth overall, 16 seconds back.

"I hope I'll recover from that by tomorrow," De Gendt said. "Stage 5 is very serious one. When the climbs have a gradient of 6 or 7 percent, that's no problem for me, but we'll face 10 percent, so I don't know if I can survive. I hope I will. I'm also confident of doing a decent time trial. If it's the case, then I'll target the top 10."

The early bird gets the jersey

The day's aggression began very early in the stage as none other than former race leader Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM), second overall on general classification at the start of the day, went on the attack after just 6km of racing. The Belgian was soon joined by a pair of Frenchmen, Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Rémi Pauriol (FDJ), and the trio became a quintet as Francis De Greef (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana) bridged to the leaders 15km into the day's action.

The riders faced the hilliest day of Paris-Nice thus far, with seven categorised climbs (three category 2, four category 3 ascents) on tap, and Pauriol took advantage of the opportunity to ride himself into the mountains classification lead, held by Finland's Jussi Veikkanen (Omega Pharma-Lotto) at the start of the stage. De Gendt was the first over the stage's opening climb, the category 2 Col de Grand-Vent at 17km, but Pauriol prevailed on the remaining six ascents to acquire 30 points and the polka-dot jersey at the stage finish in Belleville.

De Gendt, who started the day only two seconds behind race leader Matt Goss (HTC-Highroad) on general classification, took top honours at the day's first sprint in Lamure-sur-Azergues at 82km which gave the Belgian a crucial three-second time bonus, moving him one second ahead of Goss overall.

The five escapees pushed out a maximum advantage of 5:15, but De Gendt's presence in the break ensured that they would be kept in check. Additionally, Voeckler, Pauriol and Di Gregorio were also GC threats, as each started the day just 16 seconds down on Goss.

As they crested the final categorised climb, the Col de Fontmartin, the break's advantage had been reduced to 1:17 by a Liquigas-Cannondale-led peloton with 35km remaining. Undaunted, the escapees pressed onwards in their attempt to steal stage honours from the peloton. De Greef, however, fell off the pace with 17.2km to on the uncategorised rollers in the race finale leaving Voeckler, De Gendt, Pauriol and Di Gregorio a man down.

The remaining quartet up front continued to dig deep, with De Gendt again first across the sprint line at Fleurie with 15km remaining, placing him four seconds ahead of Goss on general classification with the three-second time bonus.

The peloton ever-so-gradually chipped away at the break's lead, but the escapees still held a one-minute advantage with 10km to the finish. Under the impetus of Sky, Garmin-Cervelo and Rabobank, the break's lead was reduced to 35 seconds with 4km remaining, but the four refused to yield.

As they passed under the flamme rouge, the break still held a 23-second margin over the peloton and amazingly they held on through to the finish line, with French champion Voeckler taking a well-earned stage victory, his first-ever at Paris-Nice.

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