It’s been a very good week at the Volta ao Alentejo for Eddie Dunbar, centre, on a number of fronts. From a results point of view he produced the goods on each of the five days but more importantly from a performance perspective he really showed a lot of class when it mattered.
By Brian Canty
Eddie Dunbar capped one of the best weeks of his career today with another assured display of riding which saw him finish fifth overall at the Volta ao Alentejo in Portugal.
The 20-year old Axeon Hagens Berman man was just 29 seconds down on overall winner Carlos Barbero of Movistar as well as second by four seconds in the young rider classification.
Today, he finished 12th in the bunch sprint and once again his teammates crammed the top 15 with a total of five of them up there.
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The American-based Continental team were the strongest in the race and got recognition of that by winning the team classification and that was a nice consolation for Dunbar who went close to stage, overall and young rider jerseys, respectively.
“I certainly feel stronger as a rider in terms of tactics and positioning,” he said after today’s concluding fifth stage.
“I learned a lot from last year. I worked hard over the winter and it has paid off.
“I am feeling good and strong. This was a real good way to start the season.
“As a unit, we are really strong. We earned a lot of respect in the bunch, which is always good.
“It is pretty impressive what we can do as a team when we use our strength at the right times and in a very smart way. It can be very decisive, which is really good.”
Of the other Irish in the field, Sean McKenna was in a group almost five minutes down on today’s stage winner while his An Post Chain Reaction teammate Conor Hennebry crossed the line in the same time.
They finished 106th at 26:19 and 105th at 26:14., respectively.
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