Riding his final race for Sky, Edvald Boasson Hagen got full support from his teammates in the final stage of the Tour of Beijing. The Norwegian did an impressive sprint but as he ran out of metres, he had to settle for third in a photo finish.

Edvald Boasson Hagen came within inches of victory in the final-stage sprint at the Tour of Beijing but had to settle for third place.

The Norwegian came from deep in the pack and carried the most speed across the line, narrowly running out of road to round out the podium places after a breathless final run-in.

Ben Swift also found himself in the mix in the shadow of the Olympic park and placed eighth in a sprint which at one point looked like it might not materialise.

The day’s breakaway duo of Laurent Mangel (FDJ.fr) and Tosh van der Sande (Lotto Belisol) put in a spirited ride but were caught with just 500 metres to go.

That allowed Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) to narrowly grab victory over Greg Henderson (Lotto Belisol), with a frustrated Boasson Hagen just missing out in the blanket finish.

Safe in the pack, Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing) held on to take overall victory in the final edition of the race, maintaining his three-second advantage over Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) over the final 117km dash.

David Lopez led home Team Sky’s GC charge in 12th place after the Spaniard retained the position he claimed on Monday's queen stage.

"That was really close," admitted Sports Director Servais Knaven after the stage. "If the finish was just a few metres further Edvald would have got it but that's not how it works. It's a pity but everyone is happy with how we rode. It was good to see.

"We thought this is probably the last bunch sprint for Edvald in Team Sky so we did everything to try to win. Every single rider did a great job today. We just couldn't quite pull it off.

"We knew it would be close with the break but in the last 15km the peloton were able to take a lot of time back. Philip (Deignan) and Ian (Boswell) helped chase it down, and as always Bernie (Eisel), Swifty (Ben Swift) and CJ (Sutton) were there. They really worked well together and we've seen already that when they are together they are as strong as any of the lead-outs.

"Every day something small has happened in the sprints and again today there were a couple of mistakes but we did everything we could."