Nicolas Roche led home Team Sky's challenge at Clasica San Sebastian as he finished in the main chase group in the Spanish one-day event. Less than a week after completing the Tour de France, the Irishman showed the form to make his way into an elite group on the final run-in and eventually came home in 16th place.

The group were forced to sprint for second spot after an impressive solo victory from Britain's Adam Yates. The Orica-GreenEdge rider pushed clear on the final climb, Bordako Tontorra, and held his gap all the way to the finish, eventually winning by 15 seconds.

Yates was initially unsure he'd won the race following a final circuit around San Sebastian, with Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) sprinting for the remaining podium positions.

Attacks began to fire out of the peloton on the final ascent of the famous the Alto de Jaizkibel. Kanstantsin Siutsou pushed clear inside a strong group containing the likes of Mikel Landa (Astana) and Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin). As Movistar controlled the pace that move was hauled back, with Siutsou eventually finishing in the bunch alongside team-mates Nathan Earle and Sebastian Henao.

After the race Sports Director Gabriel Rasch talked TeamSky.com through the day as the team looked to set up Roche for a top result in Spain.

"There was a break for much of the day with eight guys out front," he explained. "Then on the Jaizkibel a move went with Kosta (Siutsou) in it. They got caught on the final climb with 12km to go. Then Yates attacked and behind him was a group with Valverde, (Joaquim) Rodriguez and some other guys. Then behind that was a group which had Nico in it. He was able to come back to that first group with 2km to go.

"In the sprint he got a bit blocked and finished 16th. The plan was to give everything for Nico. We used Danny (Pate), Nathan (Earle) and CJ (Sutton) in the first part of the day, until the second pass over the Jaizkibel. After that if there were some big moves we wanted to use Lars (Petter Nordhaug), Kosta or Sebastian.”

"We wanted to stay around Nico for as long as possible. The last climb was really narrow and you needed a good position at the bottom. The guys were able to help him with that which was good,” he said.