Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) may have endured a very difficult start to his tenure with his new team but the Irish rider is now coming good at exactly the right time.
With the Giro d'Italia just around the corner - only the second Grand Tour of his career and the first where he will be a protected rider - Dunbar showed flashes of his climbing abilities on the big summit finish at Tour de Romandie today.
What's more, his placing and his efforts to attack on the climb came after his team went to the front, with 12km remaining, and went all in for the Irishman even though they had two riders up the road in the early breakaway.
At the end of the brutal 20km climb to the Thyon 2000 summit, Dunbar placed 9th, some 54 seconds down on stage winner Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates). But the key takeaway from the stage was the manner in which his team backed him, with Dunbar able to respond and take a result - not one that sets the world on fire, but which shows he is coming good.
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As the climb went on, Team DSM joined Jayco AlUla on the front, pushing the pace for its team leader Romain Bardet, with Dunbar remaining second wheel, clearly very switched on mentally and physically today.
With just under 8km of climbing to go to the finish line, on the wet and misty ascent, race leader - and yesterday's TT stage winner - Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) was among the riders being spat out the back as the group got smaller and smaller. Gino Mader (Bahrain Victorious) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) were the next big names to slip out the back door and with 7km to go, the select group containing Dunbar was down to just 13 riders.
As the group just dipped inside that 7km marker, it was Bardet who attack and effectively got the finale underway. While Yates slowly brought eight of the riders back to him - as the group split - Bardet then went again, with Matteo Jorgensen (Movistar) this time towing the group of eight up to him; Dunbar still present.
Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost) was the next to go, with about 5.8km remaining, but he too was closed down, before he went again and was closed down again. The stop-start riding in the front group saw some of those dropped starting to come to into contention, with a couple of them latching onto the back of the select group.
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And then came the sight Irish fans want to see; Dunbar surging forward with an attack with 5.1km to go. This time he pulled away, even though Cian Uijtdebroeks (Bora-hansgrohe) put in an initial effort to close him down.
As Dunbar pulled clear, Yates went after him; attacking and getting up to the Irishman, split the group in half in the process. Then Bardet immediately went again, with Dunbar slotting into the group and holding his own before losing the wheel a little. Just as Dunbar began to falter, with 4km to go, Yates attacked again and then began to pull clear.
Behind him, the group split in two; Dunbar slipped back to that second section and battled to hold the wheel on the back of it. As Yates led solo, the split in the group behind him was closed, creating a six-man chasing group. Dunbar was solo battling away about five to 10 lengths off the back of that group.
With about 2.5km to go, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) attacked the six-man group in a bid to go off in pursuit of Yates.
And that was the way it stayed to the finish - Yates winning by seven seconds from Pinot, with Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) in 3rd at 19 seconds.
Then came young British rider Max Poole (Team DSM) in 4th at 21 seconds, just ahead of Jorgensen. Uijtdebroeks was 6th at 23 seconds, with Bardet 7th at 45 seconds and then Bernal - who paced himself well on the climb - taking 8th at 54 seconds, on the same time as Dunbar and Thomas Gloag (Jumbo-Visma), in 9th and 10th.
The result puts Yates into the overall lead by 19 seconds from Jorgensen, with Caruso 3rd at 27 seconds. Dunbar moves up a whopping 21 places to 9th overall, some 1:53 down on Yates.
