Josh Edmondson makes solid start in WorldTour

His teammates may not let him know but Josh Edmondson has made a solid WorldTour race debut competing alongside Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins at the Volta a Catalunya.

The Sky rookie pro is a talented climber and has held his own at the Spanish race, which concludes tomorrow.

Edmondson played a role on the penultimate climb in Thursday's queen stage that finished with the Port Aine-Rialp hors categorie ascent where Dan Martin [Garmin-Sharp] took line honours.

"Yeah, this is the first WorldTour race I've done," the 20 year old told CW. "[Thursday] was the first proper mountain stage that I've done as well.

"It was a bit of a shock to the system but was great actually. I really enjoyed it. It was nice for the confidence to be able to keep up and sort of still help the team on the climbs in such a hard race."

Wiggins slipped from second to fourth on general classification after Thursday's stage and Edmondson conceded the day didn't entirely go to plan. However, he added the British squad reviewed tactics and is still in the hunt for overall with Wiggins 46sec adrift of Martin before today's sixth stage.

Edmondson has trained and, in Spain, is racing with some of Sky's Giro d'Italia squad, although he says he won't be making his Grand Tour debut this May.

The April 1-6 Tour of Basque Country is set to be his next race.

"I think they just want me to keep learning at the moment," he said.

"I'm learning something new everyday with all of these guys around. I think doing what I'm doing at the moment seems to be working pretty well. I do as much as I can on the climbs for everyone and help out as a general team member."

Twitter: @SophieSmith86