A near-perfect week. Laurence Pithie took the pink jersey with an uphill-sprint win on Stage 1 and never gave it back, adding second on the Arenberg cobbles and a gritty, largely solo defence on the Cassel summit to win the overall plus the points and young-rider jerseys. The team backed him with relentless control work — Callum Thornley's lead-out and pacing earned repeated praise from the sports director, and Thornley even handed Pithie his bike after a late Stage 5 mechanical. Jordi Meeus then bookended the race with a dominant final-stage bunch sprint, lead out by Danny van Poppel for a team 1-2. Two stages, the GC and three classifications: the complete result.
Cycling Results · Post-Race Analysis · Édition 2026
4 Jours de Dunkerque
2026
Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) won the 70th 4 Jours de Dunkerque outright, taking the pink jersey with an uphill-sprint stage win on day one and never letting it go. The versatile 23-year-old New Zealander backed it up with second on the Arenberg cobbles and an unsupported defence on the Cassel summit, sealing his first professional stage-race overall — plus the points and young-rider jerseys — by seven seconds over Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) and eleven over Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X). Red Bull bookended the week with sprint wins: Pithie on Stage 1, Jordi Meeus on the flat Stage 5 finale in Dunkerque. Victor Papon (Nice Métropole) provided the upset of the week from the Stage 2 break, and Tesfatsion (Cassel) and Tiller (Arenberg) shared the other stages.
Every stage we covered
Tracked riders in this race
Pithie's complete week: pink from day one to the seafront in Dunkerque
OPENINGThe race opened on Stage 1 from Lagny-le-Sec to Laon, decided on a 2 km finishing climb (~4%) ridden twice on a closing circuit. Laurence Pithie, already a winner at Rund um Köln days earlier, timed the uphill sprint to perfection to beat Bryan Coquard and take the first pink jersey on bonus seconds. Stage 2 to Liévin then went the other way: a five-man break that went clear at km 13 — including two Nice Métropole riders — held off the sprinters all the way to the line, where Victor Papon outkicked Maël Guégan and Kévin Avoine for the upset of the week, the bunch arriving seven seconds back behind Pithie.
UNFOLDSThe race turned on the cobbles. Stage 3 from La Sentinelle to Wallers Arenberg ran over Paris-Roubaix pavé, and Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X) soloed clear to win by four seconds. Crucially, Pithie answered on the same cobbles to take second on the stage — proof of his classics legs — defending and extending his GC lead. Stage 4 climbed to the steep cobbled summit of Mont Cassel, where Pithie was left to police the race almost single-handedly in the wind; Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) won the puncheur finish to move up to second overall, but the leader limited his loss to hold pink.
DECIDEDThe overall was effectively locked by the end of Stage 4: Pithie led Tesfatsion by seven seconds, with only the flat Stage 5 sprint to Dunkerque left — too few bonus seconds available to overturn the gap unless the leader cracked.
FINALEStage 5 from Saint-Omer to Dunkerque was a fast, flat sprint day. Pithie survived an early crash (needing a bike change) and a mechanical four kilometres out (borrowing team-mate Callum Thornley's bike) to stay safe in the bunch. Up front Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe ran a flawless lead-out, Danny Van Poppel delivering Jordi Meeus to a dominant win, Van Poppel second. Pithie took the overall by seven seconds from Tesfatsion and eleven from Tiller, also winning the points and young-rider classifications — a clean sweep in his first stage-race victory as a professional.
Where the race tilted
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Pithie takes pink on day oneOn the 2 km finishing climb ridden twice on the closing circuit, Pithie won the uphill sprint over Coquard and Askey, claiming the pink jersey on bonus seconds — a lead he would hold to the end.
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Papon's breakaway upsets the sprintersA five-rider move that went clear at km 13 stayed away to the finish; Victor Papon won for Nice Métropole, the day's surprise, while the GC stayed frozen with the bunch seven seconds down.
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Pithie proves his classics legs on the pavéTiller soloed to the stage win on the Paris-Roubaix cobbles, but Pithie's second place on the same sectors stretched his GC lead and reshaped the overall into a fight among all-rounders, dropping the pure sprinters down the order.
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Tesfatsion wins; Pithie defends in the windLargely unsupported, Pithie controlled the chase himself on the steep cobbled climb to Cassel. Tesfatsion took the win and second overall at +7s, but the leader did enough to carry pink into the final day.
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Crash and mechanical can't stop PithieAfter an early crash and a bike change, Pithie suffered a mechanical 4 km from the line, borrowed Callum Thornley's bike, and reached the bunch safely to seal the overall as Meeus won the sprint.
Who pressed, who missed
Movistar were Pithie's most persistent challengers. Natnael Tesfatsion won the punchy Stage 4 to Cassel with a perfectly timed late acceleration and rode into second overall, finishing the week just seven seconds shy of the win. The team also led the teams classification through the middle of the race on collective strength (Canal, Serrano, Barrenetxea all prominent). Without a way to claw back bonus seconds on the flat final stage, second was the ceiling — but a strong, aggressive Hauts-de-France campaign.
Rasmus Tiller was the standout of the cobbled day, soloing to victory in Wallers Arenberg on the Paris-Roubaix pavé and using the result to climb onto the final GC podium in third. The Norwegian's classics strength made him a constant presence near the front through the selective middle stages, and Erik Resell added top-10 sprint placings. A productive week that confirmed Tiller's form on the cobbles.
The ProTeam stole the headlines on Stage 2: with two riders (Papon and Hänninen) up the road from km 13, Nice Métropole-Côte d'Azur turned an aggressive plan into Victor Papon's breakaway win in Liévin — their first victory of the 2026 season against WorldTour and ProTeam sprint squads. Papon also held the mountains and, briefly, the points jersey. A standout day for a small French outfit.
Decathlon were consistently in the mix without quite landing the headline win. Stan Dewulf rode a strong all-round week to finish fourth overall and was second on the Stage 4 summit at Cassel, while Gianluca Pollefliet sprinted to third on the final stage in Dunkerque. A solid, near-podium return from the puncheur-and-cobbles stages that suited the squad.
Liam Slock was Lotto-Intermarché's GC card and delivered a steady week through the cobbles and the Cassel climb to take fifth overall at +14s — competitive on every selective day without ever quite challenging for a stage win. A reliable top-five from the squad's classics-oriented rider.
Cofidis came closest on the opening day, when Bryan Coquard was beaten only by Pithie in the Laon uphill sprint and briefly sat second overall and led the teams classification. As the race turned to the cobbles and the Cassel summit, the pure-sprint cards faded down the order and Cofidis (Coquard, Maisonobe, Izquierdo, Thomas all in the GC top 15 at points) couldn't convert a stage despite plenty of presence. A near-miss week.
How each story played out
Meeus was Red Bull's designated fast man and closed the race in style, dominating the flat Stage 5 bunch sprint in Dunkerque ahead of his own lead-out man Danny van Poppel for a team 1-2. It was his second win of the 2026 season and the perfect bookend to a week his team controlled from the opening day, where Pithie had already won. Across the hillier and cobbled middle stages Meeus shepherded through with the gruppetto-adjacent bunches, saving his legs for the day that suited him. A clean, reliable sprint victory that underlined his role as a closer for the team.
- 0.2 kmStage 5 — launched off Van Poppel's lead-out and won the Dunkerque sprint with clear margin
Crashes, abandons, controversy
A breakthrough overall for Pithie; Red Bull's bookend week
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The 70th edition followed the race's familiar northern-France script — tight gaps decided by an opening uphill sprint, a breakaway upset, the Arenberg cobbles and the Cassel wall — but it produced a notable new overall winner. At 23, Laurence Pithie converted a purple patch of spring form (Rund um Köln plus the Stage 1 win here) into his first professional stage-race victory, showing range across sprints, cobbles and a punchy summit that marks him as one of the peloton's most versatile young riders. For Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe it was a complete team performance: the GC, three jerseys and both bunch-sprint stages through Pithie and Meeus. Movistar's Tesfatsion and Uno-X's Tiller took the other GC podium places and a stage apiece, while Nice Métropole's Victor Papon supplied the week's romance from the Stage 2 break.
Where this analysis comes from
- 🇬🇧 BikeRaceInfo — 2026 Four Days of Dunkirk — stage reports and results
- 🇫🇷 Total Vélo — Le classement général final des 4 Jours de Dunkerque 2026
- 🇫🇷 DirectVelo — 4 Jours de Dunkerque — 5e étape et classements
- 🇫🇷 VéloPresse Collection — Les 4 Jours de Dunkerque — 24 mai 2026 — classement