Ireland's Eddie Dunbar has put in a brilliant ride again at the Tour de l'Avenir, just being beaten for a stage win on the line, above.

Eddie Dunbar 2nd on final Tour de l'Avenir stage

Eddie Dunbar has finished a very impressive 2nd on the final mountain stage at the Tour de l'Avenir. The Irish rider spent the day on the attack.

And on the final climb he was among a group of three that closed down Swiss lone leader Gino Mader who had won stage 8.

Dunbar, who has now finished 8th overall in the race, had been part of a two-man escape that went clear much earlier in the stage.

But when Mader got up to them he went on the attack; chasing the overall title.

Dunbar and the two riders he was with – Aleksandr Vlasov of Russia and Ivan Ramiro Sosa of Colombia - closed down Mader on the climb up to the summit finish.

That meant four riders approached the finish line to fight it out for the final stage victory. But on the finishing straight the yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar of Slovenia caught the four leaders.

He had a French rider in tow – Clement Champoussin - who had earlier been dropped by Dunbar's group.

VICTOIRE DE GINO MÄDER ! ??????#tourdelavenir pic.twitter.com/7cdeKnhdH9

— Tour de l'Avenir (@tourdelavenir) August 26, 2018

In the closing sprint, Dunbar looked very strong; throwing in a couple of dummy jumps before the sprint opened to try and force his rivals to kick first.

When that didn't happen, Dunbar took it up himself with a fantastic kick. He led out the sprint and opened a gap which looked like it just might be enough to win.

However, despite having gone on the attack up the final climb just a few kilometres earlier, Mader still had the legs to close down Dunbar and pass him to win.

The Swiss double stage winner just got by Eddie Dunbar on the finish line to win by half a wheel, with Champoussin 3^rd.

Dunbar threw his hand in the air in frustration; though he has climbed exceptionally well on this race.

He had to be content with 2nd place today; beaten by the Swiss 21-year-old who has hit the form of his life in the last few days.

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Because the yellow jersey finished in the front group, despite a mishap when he went off-road during a descent, he wrapped up the overall victory.

Eddie Dunbar lost some time yesterday and slipped from 6th to 16th overall.

But his ride today, when his six-man group put a lot of time into everyone else, saw him move to 8th overall in the final standings.

Today, Joao Almeida (Portugal) and Thymen Arensman (Holland) finished within seven and 10 seconds of the lead group; in 7th and 8th respectively.

But the gap back to Alejandro Osorio Carvajal (Colombia) in 9^th was 40 seconds. And to Tobias Foss of Norway in 10^th the gap was 1:10.

How it unfolded

The final stage, some 150.8km from Val d'Isère to Saint-Colomban-des-Villards Col du Glandon, was shortened.

The stage should have seen climbing from the start with the 16km cat 1 Col de l’Iseran beginning at the start line.

However, because of inclement weather on the upper slopes of that climb, the race route was changed. The stage started 35km down the route.

While early escapes got clear they were caught; Ireland's Mark Downey in one of those moves.

Eddie Dunbar began making his presence felt on the stage when he went up the road with about 40km remaining.

He would pulled clear in a select group of about 15 that also contained the yellow jersey. And from that group Dunbar would attack and lead solo for a period.

Vlasov, who would eventually finish 4th on the stage, went after him and they combined at the head of the race with 35km remaining.

A number of riders – Mader, Sosa, Osorio Carvajal, Champoussin and Almeida – would get across to them.

And from that lead group Mader would then attack; chasing both the stage win and the yellow jersey.

The man in yellow, Pogacar, was about 25 seconds behind the Dunbar group chasing with Arensman.

As the race moved onto the Glandon, Mader had 50 seconds over the Dunbar group, now numbering five, with the race leader another 10 seconds back.

Dunbar’s group would then thin down to three as the climb went on; the Irishman with Osorio Carvajal and Vlasov.

Those three would catch Mader with about 5km to the top of the climb.

And inside the last kilometre Pogacar would latch on to the back of them, towing Champoussin back up to them.