Chris Froome showed the first signs of form when he sprinted to 10th in the uphill finish on stage 3 of the Vuelta a Espana. His Sky team was pleased with the outcome that proved that their captain has good legs.

Chris Froome showed great legs to grab a top-10 finish on stage three at the Vuelta a Espana after a tough uphill drag to the line.

The Team Sky rider drove hard inside the final kilometre to bridge across to a late attack from Giampaolo Caruso and finish 10th, comfortably amongst his general classification peers in Arcos de la Frontera.

For the second day in succession Froome was protected by his team-mates and moved into a prominent position ahead of a technical run-in featuring a narrow bridge and a leg-burning final climb.

The stage belonged to Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) who jumped beyond Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) in the final metres to win the stage and move into a four-second race lead courtesy of time bonuses.

On an uncomfortably warm day in the saddle Team Sky worked hard before hitting the front as a unit with 10km to go. Christian Knees and Kanstantsin Siutsou swapped off to up the pace ahead of the finish and Froome again showed his strength to claim an encouraging placing. The result saw the Brit vault up the leaderboard to 17th overall, with strong finishes from Pete Kennaugh and Mikel Nieve placing them just seven seconds further back.

"It was a tough day and the idea was to be at the front for the final," confirmed Sports Director Dario Cioni. "It didn't go 100 per cent to plan but Chris was still well positioned going into the final climb. That was the main goal. He then showed that he's got the legs with a good finish.

"Heat was a really big factor out there. The whole stage it was incredibly warm. The peloton were also climbing quite a bit which made it even more tough. Tomorrow it's another quite technical finish. The riders will get a look beforehand on the circuit but it could still throw up an interesting result."