Benjamin Thomas takes race lead with stage 3 time trial victory at 4 Jours de Dunkerque (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Benjamin Thomas takes race lead with stage 3 time trial victory at 4 Jours de Dunkerque (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Benjamin Thomas takes race lead with stage 3 time trial victory at 4 Jours de Dunkerque (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)
Benjamin Thomas takes race lead with stage 3 time trial victory at 4 Jours de Dunkerque (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Ethan Vernon of Soudal-QuickStep celebrates at podium as best young rider (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Niklas Larsen of UnoX Pro Cycling on his way to second place on the 15.9km Individual time trial course in Saint-Quentin (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Kasper Asgreen of Soudal-QuickStep rides on stage 3 and finishes with third best time to move to second overall (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Ethan Vernon of Soudal-QuickStep finished with fourth best time (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)GC leader after stage 2 Samuel Leroux of Team Go Sport-Roubaix rides the time trial in the Pink Leader Jersey (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Olav Kooij of Jumbo-Visma rides stage 3 in the Green points jersey (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Helmets of Chad Haga of Team Human Powered Health prior to start (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)Mechanic of Team Soudal-QuickStep checks bike prior to stage 3 (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)UCI regulators check bikes prior to the stage 3 start in Saint-Quentin (Image credit: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)
Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) won the stage 3 time trial at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque and, with it, the overall race leader's jersey in Saint-Quentin. The Frenchman covered the 15.9km route with a winning time of 19:21 and was the only rider to crack 49km/h.
Thomas beat runner-up Niklas Larsen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) by nine seconds, while Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) finished in third place at 14 seconds back.
Thomas now leads the overall classification by 14 seconds ahead of Asgreen and 20 seconds ahead of Ethan Vernon (also Soudal-QuickStep) as the race heads into stage 4 on Friday.
The third stage at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque was a 15.9km time trial at Saint-Quentin. After the first two sprint stages, overnight race leader Samuel Leroux (Van Rysel-Roubaix Lille Métropole) was the last off the starting ramp.
However, with only 11 seconds between him and the top 47 in the overall standings, it appeared that his time in the leader's jersey was going to come to an end during the time trial.
Noah Vandenbranden (Flanders-Baloise) posted the early benchmark time of 20:30 with an average speed of 46.5km/h.
However, the time was soon eclipsed by faster finishers Chad Haga ( Human Powered Health) and then Maciej Bodnar (Total Energies) with a time of 20:13 and an average speed of 47km/h.
The times only continued to quicken as Niklas Larsen (Uno-X Pro Cycling) and Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) pushed the average speeds toward 48km/h. None were faster than Benjamin Thomas (Cofdis), who finished with a winning time of 19:21 and an average speed of 49.3km/h.
