Samuel Watson give INEOS sprint win on stage 4 of 4 Jours du Dunkerque 2025 as GC leader Axel Zingle crashes out

Samuel Watson has taken the win on stage 4 of the 2025 4 Jours du Dunkerque after a dramatic day saw general classification leader Axel Zingle crash out in a disaster for Team Visma | Lease a Bike.

The quartet of Fabian Lienhard (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), Matis Louvel (Israel - Premier Tech), Tom Portsmouth (Wagner Bazin WB) and Paul Hennequin (Euskaltel - Euskadi) emerged as the day's breakaway, giving the peloton a carrot to chase out front. Although the advantage of the break had stretched out to more than four minutes at one point in the day, by the time the stage entered its final 60km, that gap had already been cut to two minutes. 

By 50km to go, just Louvel and Portsmouth remained out ahead of the bunch and shortly after they had been caught by the peloton. There was then some bad news for Team Visma | Lease a Bike as race leader Axel Zingle abandoned 4 Jours du Dunkerque following a crash.

The attacks didn't end there though, and with 20km to go, Sam Maisonobe of Cofidis was dangling in front of the peloton by around 20 seconds, with the Frenchman joined by a counter-attacking Ben Swift and Lucas Beneteau shortly after. By 1km to go, Maisonobe and Swift were still around 7 seconds clear of the peloton, but with 600m to go they'd been caught. Then came the sprint and in the fight for the line it was the INEOS Grenadiers' Samuel Watson who emerged victorious ahead of Carlos Canal and Lewis Askey.