Arnaud Démare wins overall as La Pomme Marseille bursts clear in the final metres
Arnaud Démare (FDJ) comfortably won the 2013 Quatre Jours de Dunkerque, despite missing out on the sprint at the end of the final stage, between Estaires and Dunkerque. The 21-year-old Frenchman, who won stages one,two and three of the confusingly titled five day race, found himself swamped at the finish as his team ran out of steam after chasing down a break from Lloyd Mondory (AG2R La Mondiale), Chun Kai Feng (Champion System) and David Le Lay (Sojasun). The other sprinters also found themselves out of it, however, as a finishing straight attack from Yannick Martinez (La Pomme Marseille) took the stage from under their noses.
As the sprinters fought to chase down Martinez in the final metres Matthias Friedemann (Champion System) took second place, with Mathieu Drujon (BigMat-Auber 93) third.
Although he missed out on the sprint finish Démare finished in the same time as the winner and comfortably held on to his general classification lead and win the race overall.
The 163.8km stage was made up of a 94.8km loop, followed by ten laps of a 6.9km circuit around the port city. Feng, Le Lay and Mondory were part of an original group of seven, along with Le Lay’s Sojasun teammate Evaldas Siskevicius, Rudy Kowalski (Roubaix Lille Métropole), Nikita Novikov (Vacansoleil-DCM) and José Goncalves (La Pomme Marseille), which escaped in the early kilometres and opened up a lead of three minutes after 35km.
The FDJ team unhurriedly pulled back the group on the approach to Dunkerque, where Feng, Le Lay and Mondory escaped the rest. With 60km to go the trio still had two minutes of their lead remaining, but this was steadily whittled down to just one minute with 20km left, with the entire FDJ team lined up on the front of the peloton. This gap was down to 31 seconds with two laps to go, and just seven seconds as they took the bell.
Finally, with just under five kilometres to go the three riders were captured and FDJ continued to set to pace to try to set up Démare for his fourth stage of the race.
Into the final two kilometres, however, FDJ ran out of riders to set the pace and Cofidis took over on the front of the peloton and led under the flamme rouge. Astana brought Andre Guardini forward as the line approached but, with 300 metres to go Martinez launched himself off the front, and managed to hold off the chase to take the stage.
Result stage 5
1. Yannick Martinez (Fra) La Pomme Marseille
2. Matthias Friedemann (Ger) Champion System
3. Mathieu Drujon (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93
4. Adrien Petit (Fra) Cofidis
5. Kenny Van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM
6. Stefan van Dijk (Ned) Accent.jobs-Wanty
7. Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned) Argos-Shimano
8. Danny van Poppel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM
9. Clint Avery (USA) Champion System
Final overall standings
1. Arnaud Démare (Fra) FDJ
2. Florian Vachon (Fra) Bretagne-Séché Environment
3. Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned) Argos-Shimano @ 26s
4. Julien El Fares (Fra) Sojasun
5. Armindo Fonseca (Fra) Bretagne Séché Environment @ 30s
6. Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
7. Sébastien Hinault (Fra) IAM Cycling
8. Martin Elmiger (Swi) IAM Cycling
9. Geoffrey Soupe (Fra) FDJ @ 31s