COL D’EZE, France: Australian rider Richie Porte won the Paris-Nice race after a dominant victory on the final time trial stage yesterday.
Porte was in the leader’s yellow jersey overnight and only needed to protect his lead. But he attacked from the start and dominated his rivals on the uphill time trial, finishing a massive 23 seconds ahead of American cyclist Andrew Talansky, who was also second overall.
The 28-year-old Porte posted a time of 19 minutes, 16 seconds over the 9.6-kilometers from Nice to Col d’Eze to become the first Australian to win the race.
“I can’t believe it, the first Aussie to win such a big race,” said Porte, who shook hands with Talansky as the American was warming down on a stationary bike. “It’s just an honor to have my name up there with Bradley Wiggins, Tony Martin, all the big champions.”
Talansky was 32 seconds behind Porte overnight, but the Garmin-Sharp rider slipped further behind to finish 55 seconds adrift in the final standings. Frenchman Jean-Christophe Peraud finished third overall, 1:21 behind, despite coming off his bike, and American cyclist Tejay van Garderen was 1:44 back in fourth spot.
He follows in the footsteps of Sky teammate Wiggins, who won the race last year before going on to win the Tour de France.
But Porte, who came relatively late into professional cycling, ruled out any likelihood of becoming a main contender on the Tour later this year.
“I’m still doing my apprenticeship, I’m still learning from Bradley and Chris Froome, so I don’t expect to go to the Tour and ride for general classification,” he said. “I’m in a good place at the moment and don’t really want to change anything ... Whatever happens we’re going to have a hell of a team for the Tour de France.”
Rodriguez takes stage as
Froome moves into Tirreno lead
Meantime, Spain’s Joaquim Rodriguez won the fifth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico over 230km from Ortona to Chieti yesterday as Britain’s Chris Froome moved into the overall lead.
Sky’s Froome finished in a group, including former Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, just a few seconds behind Rodriguez.
That was enough for the Briton to wrench the leader’s blue jersey from Michal Kwiatowski’s grasp as the Pole was distanced on the final climb.
Rodriguez attacked on the steepest part of the final climb with 1.4km left and put eight seconds into the chasing pack, led home by Dutchman Bauke Mollema with Contador in third.
Froome finished sixth on the same time as Contador and now leads the Spaniard by 20sec with two stages left, including a final stage time-trial.
Italian Vincenzo Nibali came home in seventh, 17sec behind the winner and is now third overall on the same time as Contador.
Kwiatowski drops to fourth after finishing 40sec down on the stage, while Rodriguez has moved up to seventh in the standings, although with 55sec to make up his chances of final victory look slim.
Both Contador and Froome, whose Sky team marshalled the pace with great expertise, tried their luck on that final climb before Rodriguez made an attack stick.
