Rojas happy with Dunkirk result

José Joaquín Rojas of Caisse d'Epargne was all smiles, as he finished the 4 Jours de Dunkerque in fourth place overall. What's more, the Spaniard took out the points classification and was runner-up in the final young rider standings.

In his first appearance at the French race, Rojas only missed the podium by eight seconds, with a crash in the penultimate stage not helping. Rojas recognised that "the crash affected me a lot and I had to ride all day counterintuitively [holding the bars differently - ed.]."

Despite not able to achieve his objective of a stage win, the rider from Cieza was satisfied with his race and was grateful to his team-mates, who "did a lot of work every day so I could rest as much as possible in the final kilometres of the stage. For that work, they would have merited a victory through me, but even though I intended that very badly, it wasn't meant to be," Rojas lamented as the French race concluded.