Olav Kooij takes second stage win of this year's 4 Jours du Dunkerque

Olav Kooij took his second stage victory at this year's edition of the 4 Jours du Dunkerque. Comfortably powering to a bunch sprint win.

Stage 4 from Maubeuge to Achicourt had 174 kilometres on the menu and was expected to be a treacherous day. With four cobbled sectors involved, however they were thought to be early enough in the day not to cause damage.

Attempting to win from a break was a group of five riders with the best placed of those in the general classification of those being Morné Van Niekerk (St Michel - Mavic - Auber93) at 1:53 down.

Although the time gap had at one point been up over three minutes, as they reached 25km to go the peloton had pulled them back to with just 35 seconds.

After the break was caught a counter-attack went clear and with 6km to go however a group of riders had 54 seconds advantage.

Those four riders were of a brilliant calibre. Peter Sagan, Olav Kooij and Tim Merlier were all ahead as Cofidis frantically tried to bring back the gap and keep Benjamin Thomas in the leaders jersey.

In the final sprint, it was Olav Kooij who once again proved unbeatable, claiming his second stage win of the race so far.

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