Coquard makes the hat-trick in 4 Days of Dunkirk
Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) made all his rivals look like amateurs on stage 3 at the 4 Days of Dunkirk. Having started his sprint from Nacer Bouhanni’s (Cofidis) wheel, he easily distanced everybody else on the uphill finishing straight, putting metres into second-placed Baptiste Planckaert (Wallonie) and Rudy Barbier (Roubaix) in third and extending his overall lead on the eve of the queen stage.
With the win, Coquard extended his overall lead over Bouhanni to 20 seconds. He now faces the toughest challenge in the race as he goes into the queen stage in Cassel. After a relatively flat start, the riders will do nine laps of a tough 14.6km circuit that includes two climbs. One of them is a 3km uphill drag that ends just one kilometre from the finish and from there it is a false flat all the way to the line, meaning that it is a great day for puncheurs.
4 Jours de Dunkerque 2016 – stage 3 results (Béthune – Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise):
| 1 | Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) |
4:10:17 |
| 2 | Baptiste Planckaert (Wallonie-Bruxelles) |
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| 3 | Rudy Barbier (Roubaix Lille Metropole) |
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| 4 | Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
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| 5 | Olivier Pardini (Wallonie-Bruxelles) |
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| 6 | Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) |
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| 7 | Laurent Pichon (FDJ) |
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| 8 | Yannis Yssaad (Armee de Terre) |
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| 9 | Romain Feillu (HP BTP-Auber93) |
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| 10 | Sébastien Minard (AG2R) |
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General classification after stage 3:
| 1 | Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) | 13:12:58 |
| 2 | Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) |
+20” |
| 3 | Gediminas Bagdonas (AG2R) |
+22” |
| 4 | Marco Frapporti (Androni – Sidermec) |
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| 5 | Raymond Kreder (Rompoot – Oranje Peloton) |
+24” |
| 6 | Baptiste Planckaert (Wallonie-Bruxelles) |
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| 7 | Félix Pouilly (Roubaix Lille Metropole) |
+25” |
| 8 | Rudy Barbier (Roubaix Lille Metropole) |
+26” |
| 9 | Brian van Goethem (Rompoot – Oranje Peloton) |
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| 10 | Sjoerd van Ginneken (Rompoot – Oranje Peloton) |
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