Ineos's Rodriquez (20) pulls trigger on final mountain finish at Tour l'Avenir | Sticky Bottle

Carlos Rodriguez, who normally rides for Ineos Grenadiers but has been competing with Spain at Tour de l'Avenir, went for broke today; winning thee final stage but not doing enough to take the yellow jersey (Photo: Tour de l'Avenir)

Carlos Rodriguez, the Spanish 20-year-old who normally rides for Ineos Grenadiers, made a bold bid for overall victory at Tour de l'Avenir today but just came up short despite attacking 70km from the finish.

He claimed the final stage, some 151.6km finished at the top of Col du Petit Saint-Bernard, and was 1:52 up on Georg Steinhauser (Germany) and Filippo Zana (Italy), who were 2nd and 3rd.

Today's stage 9 featured 4,179m of climbing and took in the Col de la Madeleine and the Col d'Iseran as well as the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard summit finish.

*Rodriguez celebrates his stage win. He also took 2nd overall and won both the climbers' and young rider classifications (Photo: Cassandra Donne)*

However, while the race leader going into the final stage - Tobias Halland Johannessen (Norway) - lost time today, he fought all the way to the line, finishing 4th on the stage, and just about hanging on to take the overall victory.

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Rodriguez gained 2:11 on Halland Johannessen today and that was just seven seconds short of claiming the race lead. But the Spanish rider still won the climbers' classification and young rider classification to add to his stage win today and his 2nd place finish overall.

Tobias Halland Johannessen was shattered at the finish but he had held on to win. His twin brother, Anders, helped him on the front of the select group to try and hold the gap to lone leader Carlos Rodriguez. And on the final climb, of Col du Petit Saint-Bernard, the yellow jersey simply buried and did enough to take 4th on the stage and win the race overall by just seven seconds from Rodriguez (Photo: Cassandra Donne)

Best of the Irish today was Ben Healy in 33rd place at 19:50, on a day when the gaps through the field were huge. Dillon Corkery was 82nd at 32:20. Adam Ward was 95th at 33:03 and Liam Curley was 102nd at 41:37.

Unfortunately, Kevin MCambridge and JB Murphy were among 10 non-finishers today. Of the 174 riders who started the race last weekend, there were 102 finishers. Yesterday's penultimate stage saw 15 riders miss the time cut.

We'll bring you more detail on the Irish riders today when we have it.