Simon Gerrans claimed his second podium place in three days as the Vuelta a Andalucía reached its conclusion in Antequera.

The Aussie, who finished third on stage three, went one better this time around with another powerful sprint display, but was narrowly beaten to the line by Carmiooro NGC rider Francisco Ventoso.

HTC-Columbia's Michael Rogers finished third on the day and that result was good enough to ensure he took the overall title by 19 seconds.

Gerrans' result capped a busy day for Team Sky which had seen Bradley Wiggins join a breakaway involving Ángel Vicioso (Andalucía-Cajasur), Brice Feillu (Vacansoleil) and Marco Marzano (Lampre) after just 19km.

At one point that quartet had built up a lead of nearly five minutes as they passed over a series of tricky ascents, including the category 1-rated Puerto del Torcal, but were eventually hauled back with 30km to go as HTC-Columbia made sure they protected Rogers' jersey.

Tough stage

"It was a pretty tough stage all round," Gerrans told us afterwards. "We went straight up a category 2 climb at the start and there was a little breakaway which went off the front.

"Bradley then jumped across to it at the beginning of the descent and he spent pretty much the whole day in the breakaway. In that group with Bradley was one guy [Vicioso] who was just under two minutes down on the GC so that put pressure on Columbia to ride and defend the lead of Michael Rogers.

"We went over a couple of pretty demanding climbs including a category 1 which finished with about 40km to go and the peloton split up a bit on that which left myself, Thomas [Löfkvist] and Steve [Cummings] in the front group and at one point there were only about 15 of us left," explained Gerrans.

"But another small group got back on during the descent which took it up to about 30 and following that last climb there were a couple of teams who got on the front to chase down Brad's group so he was back with us with around 30km to go.

"Then as there were quite a few sprinters who had dropped out of the back on the category 1 climb we decided to put some guys on the front and try and kick the race apart a little bit.

"Thomas, Steve and then Brad started riding at the front of the group to set me up for the finish. Unfortunately I couldn't quite get past Ventoso but I finished a close second."

Encouraging start

That display rounded off a hugely encouraging week for the Australian in what was his debut in Team Sky colours.

He admitted: "I didn't come here expecting any results whatsoever, it was more of a preparation race so to get a couple of podium finishes is a nice bonus.

"We've got a couple of days rest now and then we race at Almeria on Sunday and then a week after that it's Paris-Nice."

Readers of Simon's blog here on TeamSky.com will be fully aware of his aims for Paris-Nice and he underlined that by saying: "It's been the focus of my early season and the plan is to go there in good shape and put in a bit of a performance."