Arnaud Démare (FDJ) took his second consecutive stage win at the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque as he outgunned his rival sprinters to win stage two on Thursday.

The former under-23 world champion was guided onto the finishing straight by his FDJ team and, launching himself from the wheel of Mickaël Delage, sprinted clear and rode practically uncontested to the line.

Adrien Petit (Cofidis) tried, but failed, to follow Démare as he accelerated, and was overtaken by Kenny van Hummel (Vacansoleil-DCM), Ramon Sinkeldam (Argos-Shimano) and Raymond Kreder (Garmin-Sharp) on the way to the line.

Victory in the 178.2 km stage meant that Démare enhanced his lead in the overall classification over van Hummel and Sinkeldam, who both trail the Frenchman by ten seconds.

"I won again today and I'm very happy, said Arnaud Démare on the FDJ website. “I really owe it to my teammates. Mathieu Ladagnous, Yoann Offredo and David Boucher did the early work and then Benedict Vaugrenard and Anthony Geslin took over. In the sprint, I briefly lost contact with Mickaël Delage but Geoffrey Soupe did a tremendous job for 500 meters, placing me at 200 meters from the finish line and all I had to do was finish the job."