Archie Ryan takes best result of career as season gains pace | Video

Archie Ryan, in the orange jersey, finishes Coppi e Bartali to take the best stage race result of his fledging pro career (Photo: Massimo Fulgenzi-SCA-Cor Vos)

Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) may not have had a proper chance to try and take overall victory at Coppi e Bartali today but the Irishman has sealed the best general classification result of his career.

The 22-year-old comes out of the five-stage race with a stage win in the bag, but also with superb form and with the confidence of looking like the strongest, and most aggressive, climber in the field.

He was unlucky on stage 3, when he went up the road repeatedly only to be chased down and then see one of the few moves he wasn't in go up the road and make it all the way.

And from that moment, trying to win the race was an uphill battle as Koen Bouwman, who won that stage and took the race lead, and his Visma-Lease a Bike team were in the driving seat.

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On the final stage today, Ryan started 2nd overall and just nine seconds off race leader Bouwman. And though there were plenty of short climbs, none offered the right chance for the Irishman to attack in a bid to take the race overall.

Both Visma-Lease a Bike and Lotto Dstny were clearly intent on arriving at the finish, on the velodrome in Forlì, for a group sprint and the climbs were not hard enough for the climbers to do more damage.

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After Visma-Lease a Bike and Lotto Dstny closed down the last of the breakaway men in the finale, they went to the front and maintained a pace that was too high for attacks to succeed.

At the finish, after 157.9km of racing, Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto Dstny) won the sprint for victory from a 30-rider group, with Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) 2nd and Davide De Pretto (Team Jayco AlUla) 3rd.

Ryan was 20th in the group, with race leader Bouwman 27th, meaning their positions in the general classification did not change; the Dutch rider taking the 2024 title by nine seconds from Ryan. Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), who won stage 2, was 3rd at 10 seconds.

More to come.

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