Sensational Sam Bennett continues resurgence with hattrick of 4 Jours de Dunkerque stage wins

Sam Bennett has continued his resurgence at the 2024 4 Jours du Dunkerque, taking an emphatic third stage win of the race on stage 5 in Cassel.

With stage 5 of the race seeing the peloton take on an unrelenting up and down parcour with barely any flat, three men thought to try their luck in the breakaway, Fausto Masnada of Soudal - Quick-Step, Enzo Leijnse of Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL and Jérémy Lecroq of St Michel - Mavic - Auber93.

The most renowned of the trio, it was somewhat unsurprisingly Masnada who proved the strongest of the leaders and the vastly experienced Italian entered the final 50km of the stage as a solo leader having dropped both of his companions and moving into the virtual lead of the King of the Mountains classification in the process. With around 35km to go, Masnada was finally caught.

With the attacks starting all over again, a quintet of Samuel Watson, Alexis Guerin, Kasper Asgreen, Thomas Gachignard and Joris Delbove countered and with 20km to go, they had built up a narrow advantage of 20 seconds at the front of the race.

Holding just 7 seconds going into the last 3km of cobbles, the breakaway could sense their attack was soon to be over and Asgreen attacked hard in a last-gasp attempt to stay away. With that move coming to nothing though, it was Delbove and Watson who were the last remaining of the attackers but they too were swallowed up within the final 2km.

Sam Bennett was still well-positioned and looking for his third stage win of the race as a group of just seven riders held the front heading into the finale. Opening his sprint, Bennett was able to look around and soak up the applause as he took victory ahead of Paul Penhoet and Jenno Berckmoes.