Hat trick for Kittel

Marcel Kittel of Skil-Shimano continued his domination of the Four Days of Dunkirk, sprinting to take his third straight stage win. On Friday's third stage of 171 km from Caudry to Le Cateau, the young German beat Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ) and Denis Galimzyanov (Katusha) to cement his overall lead.

This stage was composed of two circuits, both of which were to be ridden twice and each of which contained one climb, for a total of four climbs on the day.

The first break of the day formed at 11km into the stage. Kristof Goddaert (AG2R), Niki Terpstra (Quick Step), Johan Le Bon (Bretagne-Schuller), Mickael Delage (FDJ) and Benoit Daeninck (Roubaix Lille Metropole) got away and took the first climb and intermediate sprint points. They never had a lead larger than 1:30 and were caught at the 65km marker.

Cofidis' Remi Cusin got away only 11km later, and a group of six formed, as he was joined by Anders Lund (Leopard Trek), Andy Cappelle (Quick Step), Cyril Bessy (Saur SojaSun), Mathieu Claude (Europcar) and Anthony Colin (Roubaix Lille Metropole). This group was more successful and established a gap of over four minutes by the time it reached the feeding zone.

But that was about as far away as they would get. Colin took advantage of the situation to win enough points to take over the mountain jersey.

With about 23km to go, half of the break was caught, and only Cusin, Claude and Cappelle remained in the lead. The trio fought hard to hold on to their lead, but it was in vain. They were caught close to the end, and the final sprint ended with the usual winner, Kittel.

Full Results