“Romain Grégoire Takes Leader’s Pink Jersey in Four Days of Dunkirk: Could He Win the Final Victory?”

Frenchman Romain Grégoire took the leader’s pink jersey for the Four Days of Dunkirk on Saturday, taking a big option on the final victory by finishing second in the fifth stage, won by Norwegian Per Strand Hagenes on Saturday in Kassel (North).

After many efforts from his Groupama-FDJ teammates in the last hour of the race, and while the queen stage of the Four Days of Dunkirk was for a long time reduced to a race of waiting between the favorites, the French hopeful of twenty years attacked shortly before the red flame, in the last climb of the day. Hagenes (Jumbo-Visma) was the only man able to follow Grégoire, and easily overtook him in the sprint in the streets of Kassel to win.

Already winner of a stage on Wednesday

But the main thing was elsewhere for the Bisontin, now in pink with a lead of 13 seconds over Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step) and 17 over Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma), the best sprinter in the race, on the eve of the last stage, between Avion (Pas-de-Calais) and Dunkirk (North)… In theory reserved for sprinters.

Yet winner in 2021 of the Tour of Flanders, Kasper Asgreen, from whom Romain Grégoire delighted the pink jersey, was unable to follow the attack of the Frenchman, and did not finish in the top 10 of the stage. Already winner on Wednesday of the 2^e stage, his first success with the professionals, Romain Grégoire took the pink jersey on the same day as his teammate, Bruno Armirail, in the Tour of Italy.