Pierre Rolland (Europcar) pow­ered to an emo­tional stage vic­tory on cycling’s most famous moun­tain at Alpe d’Huez to all but secure the white jer­sey of the best young rider at the Tour de France.

Rolland attacked at the base of the 13.8km final climb and fended off three-time Tour de France cham­pion Alberto Contador to become just the sec­ond French rider to win the Alpe d’Huez stage and clam the white jer­sey with two stages left to go.

“It’s a tremen­dous honor to win at Alpe d’Huez, one of the most famous climbs in the Tour,” Rolland said. “I was feel­ing good all day. When we hit the base of the climb, my team gave me the green light to try to win. I kept a steady pace and felt strong at the fin­ish. It’s a dream to win the stage.”

With the stage win, Rolland climbed into 10th over­all at 8:57 back.

More impor­tantly, he took enough time to claim the pres­ti­gious white jer­sey of the best young rider with just two stages left to go.

“I started the Tour with the idea of try­ing to win the white jer­sey,” Rolland said. “The legs felt good in the climb­ing stages, so I always had that in the back of my mind.”

While Rolland cel­e­brated his suc­cess, team cap­tain Thomas Voeckler finally had to let the yel­low jer­sey go.

Voeckler bravely fought to defend the jer­sey over the Galibier, but faded on the final climb up Alpe d’Huez.

After wear­ing the famed yel­low jer­sey for 10 days, Voeckler set­tled into fourth over­all at 2:10 back.

Saturday’s 42.5km time trial will offer Rolland and Voeckler a chance to solid­ify their excel­lent Tour performances.

Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) is hon­or­ing the yel­low jer­sey with two days of spec­tac­u­lar rid­ing across the Pyrénées to keep the race lead at the Tour de France.

Voeckler rode hero­ically up the Luz-Ardiden sum­mit Thursday to stay with the GC favorites to keep the mail­lot jaune. Friday’s ride over the Col d’Aubisique saw Europcar con­trol a break­away to keep Voeckler in yel­low going into Saturday’s deci­sive stage at Plateau de Beille.

“The team rode fan­tas­tic today. I am very proud of them,” Voeckler said after the stage Friday. “Yesterday was very dif­fi­cult, but the yel­low jer­sey on Bastille Day gave me wings. I think if the climb had been one kilo­me­ter longer I would have fallen off my bike!”

Voeckler is being real­is­tic about his chances in Saturday’s 168.5km 14th stage that ends up the beyond-category Plateau de Beille climb high in the Pyrenees.

“Many peo­ple didn’t expect me to defend the yel­low jer­sey at Luz-Ardiden,” Voeckler said. “I can climb well when it’s a steady pace. Once the attacks come is when I have dif­fi­culty. We shall see how the stage devel­ops. What’s sure is that I will give all to defend the yel­low jersey.”

Voeckler will start the stage 1:49 ahead of Frank Schleck, with Cadel Evans in third at 2:06 back.

Anthony Charteau plans to ride his Colnago into the head­lines as the 2011 Tour de France switches gears and turns into the moun­tains in three hard days of rac­ing across the Pyrénées.

The Europcar rider won last year’s King of the Mountains jer­sey with dar­ing raids across the high­est cols of the Tour. This year, the Frenchman is hop­ing to win a stage in the mountains.

“Now we’re enter­ing my ter­rain,” Charteau said before Thursday’s start. “The big climbs of the Pyrénées suit me well. I will look to get into a break­away or play my card against the GC favorites at the end. I am ready.”

Charteau enjoyed a solid prepa­ra­tion for the Tour de France, win­ning a stage at the Route du Sud near some of the same roads where the Tour will be pass­ing over the next three stages.

Charteau said he’s will­ing to sac­ri­fice his chances to help Europcar team­mate Thomas Voeckler defend the yel­low jersey.

“I think Thomas will do bet­ter than peo­ple expect at Luz-Ardiden. Right now, we are focused on help­ing him as long as pos­si­ble,” he said. “Thomas has already told me that if he’s not feel­ing, he will let me ride for my own chances.”

Charteau has been quiet so far in the early stages, but hopes to move into the fray in the sec­ond half of the Tour.

“Winning the King of the Mountains jer­sey last year changed my career,” he said. “Now peo­ple rec­og­nize me. I think it will be dif­fi­cult to win again this year, but I am going to try. I want to honor the jersey.”

Thomas Voeckler rode a yel­low Colnago to match his yel­low jer­sey in defend­ing the race lead at the Tour de France on Tuesday.

Voeckler fin­ished safely in the main pack in the 158km ride from Aurillac to keep the Tour’s famous yel­low tunic.

“It was a beau­ti­ful day today, to ride past so many peo­ple cheer­ing for me and the yel­low jer­sey,” said Voeckler, who defended his 1:47 lead to Spanish rider Luis Leon Sanchez. “Tomorrow I will try to defend it, just like we did today.”

Wednesday’s hilly run across the Massif Central will likely see a sprint fin­ish, so Europcar can expect to get some help from the sprinter teams to con­trol any dan­ger­ous breakaways.

Voeckler is hop­ing he can carry the yel­low jer­sey into the Pyrénées, where he bravely defended the jer­sey for 10 days in 2004.

“I have to be hon­est, I do not know how many days I will be able to defend the jer­sey once we head into the moun­tains,” Voeckler said. “The gaps to the GC favorites are not very much and all the best teams in the world will be gun­ning for the jer­sey. I am tak­ing it day to day. I know I will be able to keep it for 10 days this year, so that makes every moment even sweeter right now.”

Voeckler enjoyed Monday’s rest day with the yel­low jer­sey and woke up for Tuesday’s 10th stage to see a two-day spread in the French sports daily L’Equipe.

Colnago-backed rider Thomas Voeckler vows to keep fight­ing for a stage vic­tory at the 2011 Tour de France after two straight days of attack­ing for the win.

Voeckler jumped in the clos­ing kilo­me­ters of Wednesday’s sixth stage after attack­ing in Tuesday’s fifth stage. Each time, he came within sight of the fin­ish line, only to be reeled in by the sprint­ing teams.

At the start in Le Mans on Thursday morn­ing, Voeckler says he will keep attack­ing with hopes of snag­ging a stage vic­tory, but admit­ted it’s never easy at the Tour de France.

“I don’t have a pre­cise goal at this Tour. I have to attack when the legs feel good,” Voeckler said. “They felt good the past few stages and I tried. It is never easy to win at the Tour. The Tour is com­pli­cated, between the sprint stages and the moun­tain stages, there are not many opportunities.”

Voeckler is enjoy­ing his best sea­son as a pro, with eight vic­to­ries this sea­son. His haul includes six stage vic­to­ries and two over­all titles.

He said Team Europcar is real­is­tic about its chances dur­ing the 2011 Tour de France.

“The past two years, we have won two stages each Tour. Last year, we also won the King of the Mountains jer­sey. We know it will be dif­fi­cult to match up to that again this year,” Voeckler said. “My real goal is to arrive to Paris with­out any regrets.”

Whether or not that includes a stage vic­tory dur­ing the three-week Tour remains to be seen.

Colnago claimed the high­est hon­our at the Tour de France on Sunday as Thomas Voeckler attacked his way into the yel­low jersey.

The Europcar cap­tain was part of the win­ning break­away that stayed clear of the pelo­ton in the hilly 208km ninth stage across France’s Massif Central. Voeckler crossed the line sec­ond in the stage and cat­a­pulted into the mail­lot jaune at 1:49 ahead of his near­est rival.

“This is incred­i­ble!” said Voeckler, who broke into tears on the podium. “I was going through so many emo­tions dur­ing the day. I know there were crashes behind us, but we had to make our race. This is for every­one who believes in us, for our spon­sor, for our back­ers, for our fans.”

Voeckler went on the attack for the third day in this Tour and it paid off div­i­dends. The group opened up a promis­ing gap and Voeckler avoided dis­as­ter for a car knocked two of the rid­ers off their bikes.

Voeckler takes the mail­lot jaune seven years after he wore it for 10 days in 2004.

“Thomas deserves this,” said Europcar sport direc­tor Dominique Arnould. “He’s had a great sea­son, he’s been going strong all sea­son long. We knew we’d have a chance to try to win a stage, so to take the yel­low jer­sey is just fanatic.”

Voeckler and the Europcar team will enjoy the first of two rest days Monday before lin­ing up Tuesday for the Tour’s 10th stage. The team will be rid­ing to defend the yel­low jer­sey across the hilly 158km course.

Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) put Colnago in the lime­light Wednesday with a trade­mark attack across the hills of Britanny at the Tour de France in a dar­ing bid for a stage victory.

Voeckler surged out of the pack in the 164.5km fifth stage from Carhaix to Cap Frehel to counter-attack after an early break­away was reeled in. The hilly ter­rain favored the attack, but the sprinter teams col­lab­o­rated to cap­ture Voeckler and another rider less than 2km from the fin­ish line.

“It could smell a good oppor­tu­nity late in the stage, but the other teams were too hun­gry for a sprint fin­ish,” Voeckler said. “This is the way we have to race. We don’t have a big sprinter for this Tour, so we will attack and attack. We will have more oppor­tu­ni­ties before this Tour is finished.”

In other team news, French time trial cham­pion Christophe Kern was forced to pull out of the race after wors­en­ing pain in his left knee became too much.

“I made it through (Tuesday’s) stage, but I don’t think I will make it to Paris like this,” Kern said in Carhaix on Wednesday. “We’ve been try­ing to treat it at night, but the pain seems to be wors­en­ing. To be hon­est, I am not optimistic.”

Kern enjoyed a per­fect run-up to the Tour, win­ning a stage and fin­ish­ing sixth over­all at the Dauphiné and the French national time trial title in June.

The 98th Tour con­tin­ues Thursday with the 226.5m sixth stage from Dinan to Lisieux. The hilly route include three rated climbs as the course rolls west across Bretagne. A ris­ing uphill finale is ideal for Voeckler and Co. to make another run for victory.

Colnago was in the front­line in the open­ing stage of the 2011 Tour de France as Europcar’s Perrig Quemeneur rode into the day’s main break­away across the Vendée.

The pack reeled in the three-man attack with less than 20km to go and Philippe Gilbert won the stage and claimed the yel­low jer­sey, but Quemeneur was awarded the day’s most com­bat­ive prize for his aggres­sive rid­ing in the 191km stage.

“It’s my first Tour, so have this hap­pen like this today on the first stage, it’s some­thing spe­cial,” Quemeneur said. “The objec­tive was to have a Europcar rider in the break­away today, so I am glad that I could help. We knew it would dif­fi­cult to stay away, but you must try.”

“It was impor­tant to have some­one in the front today,” said Europcar sport direc­tor Dominic Arnould. “We had some­one in the break­away for 170km, which was an impres­sive ride by Perrig against the odds. In the end, we hope to have Voeckler in bet­ter posi­tion, but we are pleased with how the Tour started.”

Thomas Voeckler led the squad with 14th, but the team is hop­ing for me later this week with more attacks and more oppor­tu­ni­ties for stage victories.

“I knew the stage would be com­pli­cated,” Voeckler said. “It’s dif­fi­cult when Gilbert in is his best form. This Tour is just start­ing, we will have plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to attack again.”

The 98th Tour con­tin­ues Sunday with a short, 23km team time trial around the Vendée region. Europcar will be hop­ing to post a strong ride to keep its rid­ers in the top posi­tions of the GC.