Team Sky was the team to beat in today's prologue of the Vuelta a Andalucia but despite an impressive showing that saw the team put four riders in the top 10, they failed to take the win. Despite now being on the back foot again an in-form Alejandro Valverde, the team remains optimistic and hopes to use its strength in numbers in the upcoming mountain stages.

Team Sky got the Ruta del Sol off to an impressive start placing four riders in the top 10 following the opening time trial. Vasil Kiryienka, Geraint Thomas, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Richie Porte all claimed impressive finishes on a lengthy 7.3-kilometre prologue in Almeria.

Team Sky riders topped the timesheets for much of the day in an impressive show of depth, but a late flurry of times saw Kiryienka’s leading marker pushed down to fourth quickest. The Belarusian sits 13 seconds behind stage winner Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) with Thomas (fifth quickest) and Wiggins (sixth) a single second further back. Porte was the final Team Sky rider down the ramp and set a time good enough for eighth, 15 seconds back on a compact leaderboard.

Multiple roundabouts made for a sometimes technical course and it was Pete Kennaugh who set the early benchmark time with an 8:46. Shortly after Edvald Boasson Hagen chipped away five seconds to move the best time along and creating an early Team Sky 1-2.

Despite the many top performances, there was a slight sense of disappointment in the Sky camp but the team hopes that their strength in numbers will come to good use when the race hits the mountains in the coming days.

“Everyone did a good TT out there today,” sports director Dario Cioni said. “We’re just missing the final punch but I think today it was more of a case of Valverde, Dumoulin and some of the others doing really good times.

“We’ve got a lot of guys up there on the GC and it’s still very wide open. Today was the warm-up for some interesting stages to come. Tactically it’s also not a bad option not to have the leader’s jersey. We can approach tomorrow in a different way and we’ll see what happens. Everyone is looking forward to it.”

The race continues tomorrow with a very hilly first stage that ends at the top of a category 3 climb. Starting at 14.15 CET, you can follow it on CyclingQuotes.com/live. You can read our preview of the race here.