The 27-year-old had team-mate Sergio Henao for company in the six-man group which pulled out a gap of over a minute on the chasing pack during a mountainous day in Mallorca.

Henao unleashed his quick finish to take third on the line in his debut week of racing for the team, on a day which also saw Mark Cavendish clock Team Sky’s first win of the season in Qatar.

A breakout performance from two climbers saw them duke it out with the likes of Jakob Fuglsang and Tiago Machado (RadioShack-Nissan), Peter Velits (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) and Rui Costa (Movistar) on the descent off the Valldemossa.

Team performance

After the finish a very happy Marcus Ljungqvist was full of praise for a Team Sky performance which saw the riders influence the race from start to finish.

The Sports Director said: "It’s been a fantastic day; both here and in Qatar. It’s great for the guys and the whole team.

"It kicked off from the gun with a five kilometre climb so it was full-on racing from the start. We had Alex and Luke looking at the early breaks and they did really good. Luke got into the break and took the sprints so he got onto the podium too.

"A couple of teams controlled the pace and then entering the second to last climb Lars-Petter attacked together with Henao. They went away in a group and it was a little bit back and forth. The group had a minute, then slightly over a minute and on the last kick up Lars-Petter attacked and managed to stay away."

Towering performance

One look at the shark-toothed profile indicated hard racing was guaranteed with no less than six second category climbs on the menu for the third day of racing on the island.

Sure enough splits and factions began to form in the mountains, with Luke Rowe seizing the initiative and making his way into a six-man breakaway.

Rowe claimed the intermediate sprints at Binnisalem and Selva with the gap to the peloton hovering at around a minute and a half. The Welsh neo-pro's efforts were rewarded with a trip to the podium to pick up the points jersey.

With half the stage completed there was still the small matter of punishing climbs over Puig Major, the Coll de Soler and the Valldemossa.

A new set of contenders came to the fore as the climbs ramped up, with Henao and Nordhaug showing just why they are rated so highly to combine with spectacular results.