Tour Down Under champ predicts general classifification will be decided before race finishes
Tour Down Under champion Richie Porte is hoping all the training his team Trek-Segrafredo has done on the tricky Lobethal-Uraidla stage will give them the edge.
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Trek-Segafredo’s 2017 Santos Tour Down Under champion Richie Porte says Thursday’s bike race is looming to be a general classification decider.
Long before the reigning king of Willunga Hill tackles the stage which he has owned for the past five editions on Sunday, Porte predicts the race could be all but over.
The 33-year-old Tasmanian says team tactics need to be perfect during the testing Stage 3 Lobethal-Uraidla stage.
Since landing in SA this year, Porte and his team have trained on those very roads and spotted all the key game-changing points of the 146.2km journey and a technical finish into Uraidla.
“A couple of times (Trek-Segrafredo has done stage 3 reconnaissance), it’s tricky, it’s a hard one and tomorrow it looks pretty hot too,’’ said Porte adding CCC must try keeping yesterday’s stage winner and Santos Tour Under GC leader Patrick Bevin safe.
“A stage like that with that heat could be a real GC stage.
“I mean it’s like you have been shooing guys away to get in the breakaway (in stage 1 and 2) but I think it’s the day when if the break goes who wants to ride this could be a bit of a tussle.
“Now CCC has to do the work; they’ve got the jersey; they’ve got a guy who could win the race it’s all pressure on them.”
Porte managed to stay upright, avoiding the carnage when a major crash marred the lead into the Angaston finish on Wednesday.
He praised the stage win for his former teammate, New Zealand’s national road champion Bevin.
Bevin, 27, claimed the leader’s jersey from popular Italian sprint gun Elia Viviani.
“It was a day not much happened and to see Patrick Bevin taking the time bonuses, now he’s taken the stage he is a real threat for the GC,’’ Porte said.
“He can climb, now we’ve got to take him into consideration and whether they’ll have the team to control it I’m not sure.
“But give Paddy respect I rode with him in the same team, he’s a good bike rider.”
“I was behind teammate Koen de Kort and Ryan Mullen and Will Clarke, the three big fellows with me and we are able to pull up just before it happened,’’ Porte said.
“But when you ride so slow and come into a finish like that, everybody is trying to sprint and everybody thinks they can sprint on a day like this, it’s always a bit of a sketchy one.”
He also lauded Tour Down Under race director Mike Turtur.
Turtur on Sunday made the call to shorten stage 2 by 26.9km after the bureau of meteorology predicted the heatwave would stick around for Wednesday.
“It was like one of those days I guess, I think the Tour organisers did a super job and made the common sense call to cut the extra distance,’’ Porte said.
“27km extra wouldn’t have changed much, I think race director Mike Turtur is leading the way for a race organiser.
“And then the weather wasn’t quite like as predicted with the cloud over-age but I still think it was good they stood by their decision.”
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