Europcar’s Voeckler won out of a four-man break­away just as the main pack was breath­ing down their neck at 13sec back in the hard-fought, seven-climb stage across Beaujolais’s wine country.

Voeckler also slots into sec­ond over­all at 10sec behind going into the deci­sive sec­ond half of the eight-day “Race to the Sun,” but admits he has few designs on the over­all and instead takes immense plea­sure on claim­ing his first Paris-Nice stage in his career.

“I had been wait­ing for this since 2003. I was sec­ond twice in the past years and I tried again yes­ter­day. It was close, but it was good enough,” Voeckler said after the stage. “With the time trial on Friday, I don’t have the slight­est chance to win Paris-Nice. I’m already happy to have won a stage for the team. I will try to win another one. Our week is already good.”

The vic­tory is the third for Voeckler on the 2011 season.

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