It was party time for two riders named Thomas today with a leading group which continued until the finish and which allowed Thomas Voeckler (Europcar Team) to win the stage by placing an attack in the last few meters while Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) could take back the yellow leader's jersey for the general classification.

The summary of the 4th stage of Paris-Nice 2011

The fourth stage of Paris-Nice 2011 was 191 kilometers long between Crêches-sur-Saône and Belleville. 169 riders came to the start this morning, the two non starters being Nikolas Maes and Gert Steegmans of the Belgian Quick Step team. Maes fell yesterday when Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) lost his tube at the end of the stage yesterday (the Slovakian rider did start this afternoon) while Steegmans fell a few kilometers earlier and decided not to continue the adventure of the 69th edition of Paris-Nice either.

After an unsuccessful attempt by Andriy Grivko (Astana), Bruno Pires (Team Leopard-Trek), Luis Angel Mate Mardones (Cofidis), Marc de Maar (Quick Step), Vincent Jérôme (Europcar Team), Pierre Cazaux (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Oleksandr Kvachuk (Lampre-ISD) 5 other riders gave it a try at kilometer 6. First with Rémi Pauriol (FDJ), the very promising Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar Team) who got company of Francis De Greef (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana) in the climb of the Col de Grand Vent .

While Denis Galimzyanov (Katusha Team) abandoned the race, the gap of the 5 leading riders on the peloton never stopped growing, up to 5'15" at the top of the Col des Ecorbans.

Rémi Pauriol takes the points at most of the climbs, thus allowing him to put on the polka dot jersey of best climber at the finish of the stage. Willing to take as many bonus seconds as possible, Thomas De Gendt passed the line first at the two intermediate sprints. Just like in the other stages of this Paris-Nice 2011, the riders again took it easy today because the average speed was 35.8 km/h in the 4 first hours of the race.

At 30 kilometers from the finish, the gap of the 5 leading riders was still 1'20" on the peloton and even though it started to go down slowly, it was especially thanks to the impressive Thomas De Gendt that it started going up again. Francis de Greef couldn't follow the pace anymore and the 4 remaining riders continued their work to stay ahead of the peloton. They manage to do so since their gap is still 30 seconds at 3 kilometers from the finish.

Under the 1 km arch, the riders look at each other and finally the French Champion is the first to attack at 300 meters from the finish. Thomas Voeckler thus takes the stage win, ahead of Rémi Pauriol and Thomas De Gendt. Thanks to the bonus seconds and the 13 seconds gap on the peloton, the latter takes back the yellow jersey of the general classification where he's now leading with a 10 seconds gap on Thomas Voeckler.

The classifications after the 4th stage of Paris-Nice 2011

The classification of the 4th stage of Paris-Nice 2011

The top 5 of today's stage was composed of the 4 riders of today's breakaway and Heinrich Haussler (Team Garmin-Cervélo) :

1/ Thomas Voeckler (Europcar Team) - 5h04'20"
2/ Rémi Pauriol (FDJ)
3/ Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
4/ Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana)
5/ Heinrich Haussler (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - +0'13"

The general classification after the 4th stage

After this stage, the top 5 of the general classification gets changed quite a lot. Thomas De Gendt gets back on the first position he had earlier this week:

1/ Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 19h26'46"
2/ Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) - +0'10"
3/ Rémi Pauriol (FDJ) - +0'16"
4/ Matthew Goss (HTC-Highroad) - +0'21"
5/ Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana) - +0'24"

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice 2011 | Paris-Nice

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