Luis Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) has won the Classica San Sebastian.

The Spaniard continued an excellent season, with strong displays seen most recently in the Tour de France and the Olympic road race, by claiming a solo victory in the 227km race in northern Spain.

Sanchez, who won the Classica in 2010, and this year has won stages of Paris-Nice and the Tour du Romandie, said: “Winning in your own country is still the best there is.”

He suffered dismal luck in the Olympic time trial, snapping his chain with his first pedal stroke, and later puncturing, but put his disappointment behind him at the Classica with a decisive attack with 10km to go.

“Of course, I returned from London feeling disappointed. That was hard, but I’m a professional, so you’ve just got to get past it. The fact that I could return to my own country and ride the first big race there was a good thing to latch on to. Ultimately, looking forward to this has kept me motivated in recent days,” Sanchez said.

He made his decisive attack inside the final 10km, holding a slender advantage of less than 15 seconds to the line.

Australia’s Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) finished second by winning the bunch sprint, and the Belgian, Gianni Meersman (Lotto-Belisol) was third.

Team Sky’s Richie Porte, who played a key role in Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France victory, and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), runner up in the Giro, attempted to chase down Sanchez but their efforts were in vain.

Sean Yates, Team Sky’s directeur sportif, said his squad, which included Olympic road race silver medalist, Rigoberto Uran, and his Columbian teammate, Sergio Henao, had begun the day with victory as the goal.

“I’d rather the guys really try and go out there and make a race of it. That’s what Luis Leon did and he reaped the benefits. We’ve won a fair amount of races this year but today we tried and didn’t reap the benefits. You could see we were trying as we had good legs and we got in the mix. Nothing ventured nothing gained,” he said.

Three of the British team’s line-up for the Classica – Uran. Porte, and Xabier Zandio – will ride in support of Chris Froome at the Vuelta a Espana, which starts on Saturday (18).

Clásica San Sebastián – result

1) Luis León Sánchez (SPA) – Rabobank – 5.55.34
2) Simon Gerrans (AUS) – Orica-GreenEdge +7”
3) Gianni Meersman (BEL) – Lotto-Belisol
4) Christophe Le Mevel (FRA) – Garmin-Sharp
5) Bauke Mollema (NED) – Rabobank
6) Mauro Santambrogio (ITA) – BMC Racing
7) Mads Christensen (DEN) – Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank
8) Joaquim Rodriguez (SPA) – Katusha
9) Xavier Florencio (SPA) – Katusha
10) Diego Ulissi (ITA) – Lampre-ISD