Russell Downing got Team Sky off to a solid start at the Tour of Murcia by claiming eighth place on stage one.

The 31-year-old had spent much of the day supporting Bradley Wiggins but was dropped off by his team-mates with a 2km to go and muscled in on the action as the stage reached its conclusion.

Despite his best efforts, Downing was unable to challenge Robert Hunter in the bunch sprint, and the Garmin-Transitions rider narrowly denied Rabobank's Graeme Brown a repeat of last year's victory on day one.

HTC-Columbia's Vicente Revens completed the podium in third.

Garmin-Transitions looked lively from the off and Danny Pate joined Alexandre Blain (Endura Racing) in a two-man breakaway after just 11km. The duo were soon accompanied by Rubén Reig (Caja Rural) and Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil), and over the course of the next 15km built a lead of over five minutes.

The quartet stayed out in front for the day's three category 3 climbs, with Blain also claiming the sprint jersey along the way, before they were eventually devoured by the peloton with less than 20km to go.

It was Rabobank who took control as the riders made their way back into San Pedro del Pinatar, but Hunter had the better of Brown when it mattered to secure Garmin-Transitions' first victory on European soil in 2010.

Going to plan

Sports director Rod Elingworth was delighted with the way things had gone for Team Sky on what proved to a challenging day in southern Spain.

"It was a good, everything went to plan," Elingworth told us. "The objective was to have as easy a day as possible.

"Lars-Petter [Nordhaug], Russell and Nicolas [Portal] were trying to keep the other guys out of the wind - letting Morris [Possoni], John-Lee [Augustyn], Chris Froome and Bradley [Wiggins] have an easy day as they possibly could, and they did a good job. There were no problems at all.

"Over the last climb Rabobank hit it pretty hard and sent about 40 riders out of the back and the last 30km was all crosswinds coming in off the coast all the way into town.

"There were quite a few splits in the peloton but the team worked brilliantly together.

"We knew it was going to be a decent group finish, and all the lads had shown good legs, so we let Russell have a little go at the finish and he did really well."