Aussie Cadel Evans, the runner up in the 2007 Tour de France and the favorite this year, won on the fabled Mont Ventoux on Thursday, beating young Dutchman Robert Gesink to the line in Stage 4 of Paris-Nice.

The strong finish catapulted the 21-year-0ld Gesink into the race leader’s yellow jersey by 32 seconds over Davide Rebellin of Gerolsteiner.  Rinaldo Nocentini of AG2R is 35 seconds back, and 10 Speed fave Yaroslav Popovich, formerly of Discovery and now with Silence Lotto, is 42 seconds in arrears.

 Evans, who is riding in support of Popo at Paris-Nice, and Gesink of Rabobank were the survivors among the elite group that chased down CSC veteran Jens Voigt, who himself was the sole survivor of the four-man group that broke away 11 km into the 176 km stage.

Voigt attacked at the base of the Ventoux, leaving behind Aleksandr Kuschynski of Liquigas, Bernhard Eisel of High Road and Niki Terpstra of Milram.

The elite chase group closed the gap on the Vonteux, spitting riders (including Sylvain Chavanel in yellow) off the back along the way. The group was whittled down to Evans, Gesink, Popovich, Rebellin, Nocentini and CSC’s Frank Schleck, but only Evans, Gesink and Popovich were left by the time they caught Voigt. Then, Popo cracked, leaving Evans and Gesink to race for the finish.

“It’s good when you win but my goal was to put Popvych in the best possible position in the overall standings; my job is done,” the letour.fr website quoted Evans as saying. “I could see in the last climb that Robert Gesink is a very, very strong young rider. Now I’d really like to continue helping Popo, He still has a chance of doing a very, very good Paris-Nice.”

Meanwhile, letour.fr quoted Gesink as saying: ““I hoped for it and my team with me, we worked very hard. I was really good today. The long climbs are good for me because I can keep the pace, When Popo went off, I just went for the finish. I’m really happy to have the jersey even if Cadel Evans did not let me win the stage. That’s cycling, and I understand. Of course, I hope to come back here and win on the Ventoux some day.
I have a very strong team and I hope to keep the jersey in the next few days.”

Gesink won Stage 3 in the Tour of California last month, teaming with Astana’s Levi Leipheimer on a wicked descent into San Jose/Santa Clara after they were the survivors on the hors categorie climb on Sierra Road.

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