Richie Porte not afraid to give all in individual time-trial ahead of road race at weekend

RICHIE Porte says he will hold nothing back in tonight’s individual time-trial despite competing in the 272km road race at the worlds on Sunday.

Richie Porte

RICHIE Porte says he will hold nothing back in tonight’s gruelling 57.9km individual time-trial despite also carrying Australia’s hopes in the 272km road race at the world championships on Sunday.

Porte’s UCI road world titles campaign in Italy started with the team-time trial for Sky Procycling on Sunday and will continue by donning the green and gold jersey twice this week.

Porte and Rohan Dennis are Australia’s two starters in tonight’s individual time-trial where they will have to beat the likes of Swiss Fabian Cancellara and German Tony Martin for a spot on the podium.

They will also ride the road race where Porte and Cadel Evans will be Australia’s two protected leaders around the tough circuit in Tuscany.

The 28-year-old Tasmanian is coming off a huge season which included winning Paris-Nice and helping Chris Froome win the Tour de France.

But after a month of training and racing at altitude, he isn’t afraid of exhaustion and promises to go all-in for tonight’s ITT.

“At the end of the day for us as professionals, that’s just how it is,” Porte told News Limited.

“You don’t really worry about how you recover after a 50km time-trial because we do it in the Tour (de France) all the time.

“It’s going to be like any normal time trial, full gas, and see how Sunday is, it’s 270km and a hard circuit so either you’re going to have the legs or you’re not and you can’t use the time trial as an excuse.

“I’ve had a good block at altitude, three weeks in Colorado and training at around 2600m (above sea level), sometimes up to 4200m so that all helps.

“Then you come down from altitude suddenly you can breathe properly again, then you realise the form is not too bad, it’s just (having) to recover from that.”

Porte - who was fourth in the ITT at the 2010 world championships - took two weeks off after the Tour de France in July and escaped injury in a crash in Canada last week.

“I enjoyed my time after the Tour so that’s quite important, I had a couple of weeks of basically no training,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to the worlds then a few races afterwards also - I’ll do (Giro di) Lombardia and (Tour of) Beijing and Japan Cup so it’s all go.”

He said the world titles were perfect motivation to keep riding right through to October, especially when the road race course suits climbers.

“It doesn’t always happen that there’s a worlds which is a good course for you,” he said.

“It’s a long season, I started racing nationals in January and I’m still going but it’s also been a fantastic season so I’d like to finish it off with a nice result somewhere - if not worlds then some of the other races.”

Porte expects the general classification contenders from this month’s Vuelta a Espana to bring good form to the world championships but says the third Grand Tour of the season might have also taken its toll on some of them.

“Some of the guys come out of the Vuelta absolutely on their hands and knees.

“It’s a possibility because it was a hard race - you saw Nibali lose it in the last week and he’s one of the favourites here (worlds) so I hope there’s a few more the same as him.”

In a boost for Tour Down Under organisers, Porte plans to return to Australia for a month at the end of the season then head to Adelaide in January for the season-opening WorldTour race.

“I’ll come back to Australia for a month which is something to really look forward to,” he said.

“Then I think I’ll do (Tour) Down Under which for me that doesn’t happen often.”