Archie Ryan followed up his superb win on Saturday’s road race stage of the Tour de l’Avenir with another fine performance on Sunday’s concluder, riding prominently in the mountains and ultimately finishing fifth in the race to Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise.
He and his Ireland team-mate Jamie Meehan were aggressive on the final stage, Meehan going clear in the early breakaway and later being in a select and greatly reduced main bunch with Ryan as many other riders dropped back.
Seven riders had gone clear and four of these stayed out front until the end. Italian rider Giulio Pellizzari took the stage ahead of Isaac del Torro (Mexico), the latter winning the race overall. William Junior Lecerf (Belgium) and Embret Svestad-Bardseng (Norway) were third and fourth, while Ryan was best of the rest, outsprinting Swiss rider Jan Christen for fifth.
Meehan was 18th, his best showing of the race and clearly getting stronger as the event progressed.
While Ryan had hoped to equal or better his fourth overall of last year, he had missed almost the entire season due to a knee injury. He did just one day of racing before the start and was, by his own admission, undercooked, in terms of physical sharpness. He was also hampered by the effects of a crash on stage two.
His stage win was a huge achievement in this unofficial under-23 Tour de France, and further underlines his status as one of the best young climbers in the peloton. He ended the race 16th overall with Meehan 30th and Kevin McCambridge 58th.
Meanwhile, Megan Armitage finished an impressive fifth overall in the Giro Toscana Internazionale Femminile in Italy on Sunday, 16 seconds behind the race winner Alessia Vigilia (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo).
The Arkéa Pro Team rider was fifth and sixth on stages, then 17th in the final leg on Sunday, part of a small group that was six seconds behind the solo winner Olha Kulynych of Ukraine.
Imogen Cotter (Fenix-Deceunick Continental) was a non-starter on Sunday, having been caught up in a crash towards the end of Saturday’s stage. She had pain in her hip flexor and abdominal muscles after the fall.
In Germany, Sam Bennett was ninth on the final stage of the Deutschland Tour.
