HTC Highroad's Tony Martin won The Paris-Nice Classic this afternoon.
Stage eight was a 124km stage around Nice and featured the climbs of the Darnus, Chateauneuf, Calasion, Turbie, and Col d'Eze to test the riders still in the race on a wet day.
A group of eleven riders riders which included Thomas Voeckler and Remi Pauriol as well as Lopez, Vino, Busche, Carrara, Didier, Gerdemann, El Fares, Izagirre and Ulissi broke away and got two minutes clear.
Geraint Thomas (pictured below) was doing plenty of work in the pelton for Bradley Wiggins who was third on the road behind race leader HTC Highroad's Tony Martin to get them back.
The leaders broke into a group of four with 25km to with Voeckler leading the way from El Fares, Ulissi and Carrarra, knowing that he could win the race as the other top eleven riders in the General Classification were in the bunch.
Lampre's Diego Ulissi took the final climb of the Col d'Eze but it was Voeckler, the French Champion who was surging away as the race went into its final eight kilometres.
The rain was pouring down as Voeckler rode round the streets of Nice before he crossed the finishing line in a time of 3hr 15mins and 58 seconds.
Diego Ulissi came in second with El Fares third. Tony Martin rode in with a bunch some one minute and twenty two seconds down to win the race overall and give Wiggins a third place.
"We've won lots of stage races before, but never one of this calibre," commented HTC-Highroad sports director Allan Peiper to the HTC PressOffice, "and at the same time it's a huge step up in Tony's personal career, too."
"Tony led like a real champion, he really put his stamp on the race with that time trial win and then as a team we did well to defend it."
After mountainous terrain and poor weather shredded the field on the final 122 kilometer stage, Martin crossed the finishing line safely in the main pack of just a dozen riders.
Second in the final podium was German Andreas Klöden, 36 seconds behind with Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain in third at 41 seconds.
"The only thing that could really have undone us was the weather," Peiper added, "we'd had crashes with Tejay [Van Garderen] and Kosta [Konstantsin Siutsou] going down on Saturday but they still gave it 100 percent."
"We'd lost Martin Velits early on through injury, but Alex Rasmussen really pulled out the stops, and Matt Goss was doing brilliantly on the climbs even though he's a sprinter."
"At the same time, Tejay [Van Garderen] worked hard for Tony on the biggest mountain stage and opening that gap on most of the rest of the field that day really made a big difference."