Stage 3 of the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco contained five climbs on the first of two consecutive summit finishes and saw RadioShack-Leopard miss out on the decisive action.

A five man break provided the action before finally splitting up on the fourth climb as the peloton prepared for the super steep final climb in Trapagaran. Sergio Henao (Sky) tested the group early on the climb with Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) able to bridge the gap, before a counter-attack from Giampaolo Caruso (Katusha) and Carlos Betancur (AG2R) broke free.

Henao responded again and this time the 25-year old Colombian rider initially passed the duo before going head-to-head with Betancur to just inch out the win on the line in front of huge crowds of enthusiastic Basque fans. Henao’s win gave the Tour of the Basque Country a third race leader in three stages.

For RadioShack-Leopard it was a day of missing out in the decisive phases of the stage but team director Kim Andersen was satisfied nonetheless: “We were still there at the end with our leaders Klöden and Matthew,” he explained on the team website. “They just missed a little bit right at the end on the final climb so we like what we saw. We also saw today that Andy continues to progress and [he] did well on a day of climbs. Early in the stage we tried for the breakaway today but weren’t able to make that happen so we will try again, especially on Friday’s stage.”

Stage 4 on Thursday brings more racing action in the mountains and entails yet another summit finish on a 151 km route from Trapagaran to Eibar (Arrate).

From Thursday through Saturday you can follow the action from Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco live here on Cyclingquotes.com