By Gerard Cromwell
While the day didn’t start off too well when Team Sky’s Richie Porte left his cycling shoes in his hotel room, it didn’t stop the Tasmanian soloing to victory atop Old Willunga Hill today to win stage five of the Santos Tour Down Under in Australia.
Porte’s Sky teammates, including Ireland’s Philip Deignan, rode hard to pull back a determined break containing Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing), Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha), Juan Jose Lobato (Movistar) and Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step) to set things up for the eventual winner on the second of two ascents of Willunga.
Porte then jumped clear of his rivals with two kilometres to go on the famous climb and soloed to stage victory with 10 seconds advantage on Italian Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) and third placed Simon Gerrans of GreenEdge.
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While bonus seconds for the stage win catapulted Porte up to fourth place on the general classification, he is still 10 seconds back on new leader Gerrans going into the final stage criterium in Adelaide tomorrow.
Overnight leader Cadel Evans (BMC) went on the attack late in the stage but faded towards the end, coming home in 6th place some 4 seconds down on Gerrans. The time bonus on the line for third placed Gerrans and the time loss on the stage combined; Gerrans now has a one second lead over Evans in the general classification.
The hard working Deignan slipped down to over six minutes back today.
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“The guys were absolutely incredible,” said Porte after the stage.
“It was a little bit of a shame on the Corkscrew stage that I was a little bit out of position and lost some time. I was disappointed because I started badly positioned and not taking anything away from Cadel, I could have played it a little bit better.
“But I felt great coming into today. The team had a plan and the boys were incredible. Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas were there to the last minute. They dropped me off right on the front at the start of the climb and victory is credit to all those guys.
“Winning here means everything for me. Sky is such a great team. It’s a great way to repay them for the belief they have in me. It’s January and I’m not in top form just yet. To win in Australia and on this climb is a very special victory.”
(Couple of videos below advertisement)
Last 1.5km of action up the climb
Richie Porte winner's interview
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