A win on your birthday! Movistar come out on top in an entertaining Dunkirk stage

Stage four of the Four Days of Dunkirk has been won by Natnael Tesfatsion. The Movistar rider from Eritrea proved the strongest from a reduced lead group after an entertaining finale. He held off a strong Stan Dewulf and Kim Heiduk to take first and second and third respectively. Laurence Pithie managed to hold onto the leader's jersey.

Pithie was still wearing the leader's jersey after three days, despite a race that kept making life difficult for him. He had won the opening stage, before the early breakaway riders had their day on stage two. Stage three was the classics specialists' turn on the cobblestones of a mini Paris-Roubaix through Wallers-Arenberg. Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X Mobility) won, but Pithie narrowly held on to the jersey. Stage four would again be no easy ride.

Saturday's stage offered the peloton a hilly route, peppered with short, vicious climbs throughout. After a flat opening section the race arrived on a local circuit featuring two ascents. The Rue de Tambour was unremarkable, but the Rue d'Aire was considerably harder. Mont Cassel is the more familiar name for this climb — with some steep gradients and even cobblestones through the centre of Cassel itself.

On the local circuit, five riders took the initiative: Wessel Mouris (Unibet Rose Rockets), Fabien Doubey (TotalEnergies), Baptiste Gillet and Victor Papon (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) and Morné van Niekerk (St Michel-Preference Home). The peloton allowed the group a maximum lead of around 2:30.

Lead man Gillet had to let his breakaway companions go relatively early, leaving a four-man tête de la course. The quartet's lead did not last much longer either, as the pace in the peloton was cranked up sharply. A series of attacks and counter-attacks created an entirely new race situation.

What was never in doubt was the quality of the spectacle across the North French countryside. The gaps between the various groups that formed were constantly small and shifting. Everything was decided on the vicious final climb, where the race was torn completely apart on the cobbled finishing straight. There, Movistar's trump card Tesfatsion proved the strongest of all, holding the equally impressive Dewulf and Heiduk behind him. Pithie, seventh on the stage, managed to save his leader's jersey.