The penultimate day of racing at 4 Jours de Dunkerque saw the peloton take on the hardest stage of the race, with a tricky circuit in the finale that featured two climbs and even some cobbles. It was a fast start to the race with lots of attacks before a group of three went clear that featured Enzo Leijnse, while the rest of the team stayed in the bunch and supported Casper van Uden. Leijnse’s group was able to get a maximum advantage of five minutes but as they hit the circuit that decreased drastically, as did the size of the peloton, before they were eventually brought back. Some strong support by the team saw Van Uden make it into the reduced peloton heading into the last lap but a terrible bit of misfortune saw him suffer a puncture inside the last ten kilometres. After fighting back in a group, Van Uden returned just at the base of the last three kilometre climb. Having already spent quite a bit of energy to come back, Van Uden had to pace himself up the ascent, digging deep and giving everything to the line.
Van Uden said: “The plan was to get as deep into the final as possible and see what we could do, and the boys did a super job for me throughout the day, keeping me safe. Unfortunately, I punctured in the final which cost some energy to come back, but tried to then just go full gas to the line on the climb. We have one more chance tomorrow to get a result.”