An aggressive ORICA-GreenEDGE outfit controlled much of the day’s racing at the Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian this afternoon, an unfortunate crash to Adam Yates in the final kilometers denying the team a worthy result.

Yates, coming off his win at the GP Industria and Artigianato last weekend, was in a lead group of five riders over the final classified climb before crashing heavily on the descent with 3.5km left to ride.  The British neo-pro suffered a hit to the chin that will require stitches.

Alejandro Valverde (MOV) went on to win solo whilst ORICA-GreenEDGE’s top finisher was Jens Keukeleire in 24th position.

“To some degree we had control of the race all throughout the day,” sport director Neil Stephens said to Orica’s website.

“It was a day that we wanted to try and get a result and we were in it until three and a half kilometers to go but then it was out of our hands.”

After two unsuccessful breakaways early in the race, Amets Txurruka (CJR) was allowed to go solo in the first and longest move of the day.

Txurruka was allowed a maximum advantage of 6minutes 40seconds before the peloton, led by ORICA-GreenEDGE and Movistar, lifted its intensity and brought the race back together with 60km to race.

Amongst considerable movement at the head of the race Michael Albasini attempted an attack off the wheel of Australian champion Simon Gerrans on the penultimate climb before Yates worked to the front on the final climb.

“Jens Mouris was on the front right from the start,” Stephens said.

“Gerrans felt like he wasn’t in good shape. He is a fantastic champion so as soon as he realised he wasn’t in great shape he got on the front and chased."

“From there on it was game on for Adam Yates and it was a real shame that at 3.5km to go he crashed out."

“It wasn’t from a lack of trying, we tried everything and unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be."

“He will recover and he will bounce back.  What he would have done in the finish we will never know. We will have to wait for others years and other races to find that out.”