After yesterday's excellent performance that saw him being the only one to keep up with Sylvain Chavanel in the hilly finale, neo-pro Michael Valgren headed into today's queen stage of the 4 Days of Dunkirk with the ambition of defending his spot on the podium. After a strange race that saw an early break almos turn the GC on its head, the Dane survived the day and is now just one day away from a fantastic result.

The 188 kilometer long fourth stage of 4 Days at Dunkerque between Ardres and Licques was dominated by a breakaway of nine riders where Marko Kump represented Tinkoff-Saxo and with a gap of 9 minutes with 60 kilometers to go, the escapees were given a perfect opportunity of making it last.
 
In the pack, the Tinkoff-Saxo boys took control of the pace making minding that Michael Valgren was third overall before the stage only 5 seconds behind Arnaud Démare (FDJ). That also meant that Kump was given a valid alibi to remain on the wheel of his fellow escapees. In the pack, Sylvain Chavanel’s IAM joined Tinkoff-Saxo in the front of the pack and picked up the pace on the climbs to put Démare under pressure and every time, he lost ground but was brought back to the front by teammates.
 
Entering the final 30 kilometers, second overall, Sylvain Chavanel took off in a surprise attack taking on the entire peloton while chasing the escapees 3 minutes up the road.  Démare was forced to let his teammates work hard on the chase as merely a few seconds separated the two riders overall and Chavanel was brought back a few kilometers later.
 
From then on, it was an entertainingly messy finale with constant attacks from the front group and from the chasing bunch and Kump was dropped. Going solo from the front group was Thierry Hupond (Giant-Shimano) who won the stage. Only 20 seconds later, the group of favorites powered up the uphill finish and Arnaud Démare retained the overall lead before tomorrow’s final stage of the race.
 
Tinkoff-Saxo’s Michael Valgren was in the mix with Chavanel and Démare and is still third overall - 6 seconds behind Démare:
 
“The whole team worked impressively hard today and I’m really happy to see that Michael (Valgren) maintained his spot on the podium," sports director Tristan Hoffman said. "In addition, we’ve been voted the most aggressive team in the race.

"It was a kind of a messy start as no one took responsibility in the beginning of the stage so we decided to move to the front and brought the gap down to 5.30 minutes.

"There was a lot of wind, which slowly wore down both the escapees and our guys in the front but Valgren rode another significantly wise stage and stayed with Démare. Tomorrow’s final stage is a tricky one and if it’s as windy as today, I expect attacks and our aim is to bring Valgren to the podium"