Richie Porte and Amanda Spratt lead Aussie medal hopes at road cycling world championships

WITHIN days of watching his Tour de France dream evaporate with a cruel mid-race crash, Richie Porte sent a message to Australian cycling selectors telling them he wanted in on this year’s world championships.

Richie Porte will lead Australia in the men’s road race at the world championships in Austria in September.

WITHIN days of watching his Tour de France dream evaporate with a cruel mid-race crash, Richie Porte sent a message to Australian cycling selectors telling them he wanted in on this year’s world championships.

Porte was at home in Monaco with a broken collarbone and planning how to salvage the second half of his season when he decided on racing the Vuelta a Espana starting on August 25 and the climber-friendly world championships in Austria in September.

Cycling Australia on Wednesday announced its team for the world titles and confirmed Porte would lead the men’s road race and Amanda Spratt would lead the women’s medal hopes.

“He’s coming back from a big disappointment but sometimes you’ve got to lose big to win big and Richie has had a few knocks but he’s still hungry,” CA high performance manager Simon Jones said.

“He texted us a couple of days after the Tour and said he was up for the worlds, we let him recover a little bit and he will build his form, it’s certainly a climber’s course and he’s back in training.”

Porte will be supported by a team of hungry young climbers including Jack Haig, Damien Howson, Robert Power and Chris Hamilton and also have the experienced heads of Simon Clarke, Rohan Dennis and Rory Sutherland alongside him.

“It’s a really tough course this year and I think we’ve picked a team that will give us the best chance,” Jones said.

“I think we’re going to be in as good a position as we can be but road worlds are so variable.

“Across both teams we’ve got a good mix of experience and some youth which is nice to see but wasn’t what we were aiming for - we’re thinking about how to win the bike race and picking the team that will give us the best chance.”

Spratt headlines the women’s team after a brilliant season so far has seen her win the mountains jersey and a stage at the women’s Giro d’Italia, a Swiss one-day race and go top five at Amstel Gold, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and La Fleche Wallonne.

Spratt headlines the Aussie women’s team after a stellar road season.

“Amanda has had a great year, she certainly deserves having some backing and a focused approach,” Jones said.

“We’ve got to monitor the build up pretty closely because there is racing between now and then and we’ll make sure we have the right strategy on the day.

“But as it stands the plan is we’ll have a pretty focused team strategy, we won’t gamble with too many options, we’ll have a clear plan.”

Joining Spratt will be Lucy Kennedy, Shara Gillow, Tiffany Cromwell, Sarah Roy, Brodie Chapman and Grace Brown.

Dennis the only rider doing the time trial with no woman taking the place of Commonwealth champion Katrin Garfoot who has retired from the sport.

The UCI road world championships will be held in Innsbruck from September 23-30. Slovakian superstar and six-time Tour de France green jersey winner Peter Sagan is the three-time defending road race champion but faces a huge challenge to make it four in a row on such hilly terrain.

AUSTRALIAN TEAM FOR THE UCI ROAD CYCLING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA, SEPTEMBER 23-30

Men’s road race:

Richie Porte

Rohan Dennis

Jack Haig

Simon Clarke

Damien Howson

Rory Sutherland

Robert Power

Chris Hamilton

Men’s time trial:

Rohan Dennis

Women’s road race:

Amanda Spratt

Lucy Kennedy

Shara Gillow

Tiffany Cromwell

Sarah Roy

Brodie Chapman

Grace Brown

Under-23 men road race:

Callum Scotson

James Whelan

Jai Hindley

Robert Stannard

Michael Storer

Lucas Hamilton

Under-23 men time trial:

Callum Scotson