Porte prevails on Alto do Malhão mountain finish

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Richie Porte (Sky) stamped his authority on the Volta ao Algarve as the Australian soloed to victory on the queen stage and took over the race lead from teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen.

A pair of Portuguese riders, Tiago Machado (RadioShack-Nissan) and Rui Costa (Movistar), finished second and third respectively on home soil, eight seconds behind Porte. Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil-DCM) crossed the line in fourth at 24 seconds with teammate Wouter Poels and Jurgen Van Den Broek (Lotto Belisol).

Porte's Sky squad was firmly in control of the 194.6km stage's endgame, setting a furious tempo from the penultimate climb at 15km to go through to the upper slopes of the mountain finish atop the category 2 Alto do Malhão.

Race leader Edvald Boasson Hagen took to the front on the lower slopes of the Malhão and then handed the reins to British champion Bradley Wiggins, Porte's final pace setter on the climb to the finish as the race completely shattered under Sky's impetus.

With only a handful of riders at the head of affairs, Machado attacked inside of two kilometres to go but Porte quickly bridged to the RadioShack-Nissan rider and dropped him. The 27-year-old Australian punched out a steady tempo through to the finish to win his first race of the season and keep the leader's jersey in Sky's possession.

Machado moves up to second overall, 12 seconds behind Porte, while Costa holds third on general classification at 14 seconds.

"It wasn't hard with that team," said Porte. "They were incredible! You don't really want to single out one person as they were all incredible. You see Zandio and Kosta on the front the whole day. It was a hard stage and they got dropped but then they come back with bidons and food with 60k to go. For me that just shows what this team is all about.

"Froomey, Thomas and Lars did brilliant work, then Edvald and Brad on the climb. It just worked like clockwork. I know in cycling it doesn't always happen like that. It's a team victory but to then get the glory of riding across the line first is great.

"Even a day in yellow and a stage is great, as well as Eddy yesterday - it's just nice to be enjoying riding my bike again and that's credit to Team Sky."

Queen stage on tap

Eight riders separated themselves from the peloton 28 kilometres into the 194.6km queen stage, featuring five categorised climbs and culminating with a category 2 mountain finish. The escapees included Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Christophe Riblon (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Marcus Burghardt (BMC Racing Team), Martijn Maaskant (Garmin-Barracuda), Kasper Klostergaard Larsen (Saxo Bank), Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Ronan McLaughlin (An Post-Sean Kelly) and José Gonçalves (Onda).

The break reached a maximum advantage of nearly eight minutes over the peloton, but the pace-making efforts of Team Sky gradually chipped into the leaders' advantage. Their lead was reduced to 5:30 after 105km were covered and on the slopes of the day's third categorised climb, the category 3 Cavalos, the break was absorbed.

Sérgio Sousa (Efapel-Glassdrive) took top honours at the KOM to move ahead of mountains classification leader Karsten Kroon, and the Portuguese rider was followed across the KOM line by Sky's Chris Froome and Lars Petter Nordhaug.

With 41km remaining Carlos Barredo (Rabobank) and Blel Kadri (Ag2R-La Mondiale) had a go off the front and the duo soon pushed out a lead of slightly more than one minute.

Sky continued to set a strong tempo at the head of the peloton and once again neutralised a break's escape attempt with 15km to the stage finish.

Sky's Froome, Wiggins and Thomas Lövkvist swept all three placings at the penultimate climb's summit one kilometre later as the peloton splintered in their wake. The British ProTour squad continued to turn the screws through to the finishing ascent, as Porte capped off a stellar team effort with the stage victory and leader's jersey.