Triathlon Daily

Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) won Thursday’s fourth stage of Paris-Nice, a 176km grind from Montelimar to Mont Ventoux. The course covered four Cat. 3 climbs before tackling Ventoux's "undiscovered" north face — a 17km final Cat. 1 climb finishing at the Mont Serein ski station, about 5km short of the observatory summit featured in the Tour de France. As has been the tradition here this year, the racing got under way early with CSC’s Jens Voigt taking a flyer at the 11km mark, joined by three others — Aleksandr Kuschynski (Liquigas), Bernhard Eisel (High Road) and Dutchman Niki Terpstra of Milram. Come the foot of Ventoux, the foursome still held some three and a half minutes over the chasing peloton. And that’s when Voigt made his move, chuggling alone solo toward the ski station. First Gerolsteiner, then Quick Step drove the pursuit. It proved too much for young race leader Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), who fell off the pace at midclimb. Teammate Maxime Monfort stuck by him. Up front, Voigt’s margin was less than two minutes with 5km to go. Behind, Robert Gesink (Rabobank) attacked out of the chase, marked by Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner), Evans and Yaroslav Popovych (Silence-Lotto) and Frank Schleck (CSC). But only Evans could stick with the Rabobank man as he chased and eventually caught Voigt with just over 2km to go, and in the finale, it was the Aussie taking the stage win ahead of Gesink, with Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R) third. Stay tuned for a race report from VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood, photos from Graham Watson and complete results. Paris-Nice: Stage 5 1. Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence-Lotto) 2. Robert Gesink (Ned), Rabobank 3. Rinaldo Nocentini (I), AG2R 4. Davide Rebellin (I), Gerolsteiner 5. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC