Had it not been for Team Sky, the early break would have gone all the way to the finish in today's first Alpine stage in the Giro d'Italia. However, the British team wanted to contest the stage win with Rigoberto Uran and even though that ultimately failed, they were happy to at least give it a try.

It was touch and go in today's mountain stage in the Giro d'Italia. At the bottom of the final Jafferau climb, the early break of Luca Paolini, Sonny Colbrelli and Daniele Pietropolli were still 4.05 ahead of the peloton and for a moment they seemed to have a good chance of contesting the win.

However, Team Sky wanted more than just Rigoberto Uran's win on the Altopiano del Montasio climb and so the team had taken responsibility for the chase most of the day. The team's hard work saw the break being caught inside the final 3km of the stage and their Colombian captain was ready to battle for the stage win.

The team first sent Sergio Henao up the road and when he was brought back, Uran was ready to go on the offensive. However, race leader Vincenzo Nibali was the first to attack and the Colombian was unable to follow the acceleration. He finished the stage in 5th 30 seconds behind stage winner Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini).

Sports director Marcus Ljungqvist was happy to see the team take on the responsibility of the chase.

“The team did a lot of great work," he said. "That was the plan – to go for the stage and set it up for Sergio and Rigo in the end. The guys did a great job as a team to bring back the break. There were moments when we thought it would be close but the guys were strong out there. It was just a hard day with the rain and cold. A lot of people just wanted to get to the finish but we tried. And if you don’t try you don’t win."

Uran is still 3rd overall but is now 2.46 behind Nibali while Santambrogio is only 1 second further behind. The team will get an opportunity to take back some time in tomorrow's second Alpine stage which after some uncertainty will take place almost as originally planned.

“We’ll see what happens tomorrow and the stage we end up with," Ljungqvist says Let’s hope for a bit better weather!”

Starting at 12.45 you can follow the stage in its entirety on CyclingQuotes.com/live.