Rampant Richie Porte wins Tour Down Under stage two
Australian star takes control of Tour Down Under with stunning attack in Paracombe
Richie Porte surged to victory in the second stage of the Tour Down Under with a brilliant attack in the closing stages.
The powerful Australian climber, 31, destroyed his rivals inside the final 4km up to the finish at Paracombe.
Porte is now overall race leader by 20 seconds ahead of Gorka Izagirre and he feels that could be absolutely crucial in the battle for the Tour win.
“I think I got a good gap in the General Classification and although it is not over because there are a few hard stages to come, this team is fantastically strong so we can be quite confident,” BMC Racing star Porte said.
“We’ll try to defend this jersey now and there are some stressful days coming up, so we won’t count our chickens until they are hatched.”
Porte has finished second in the Tour Down Under for the past two seasons was also delighted to banish the demons of 2015 when he made a tactical error on the same climb to lose a big chance of overall victory.
“I had some nightmares of two years ago when we played it cat and mouse and it didn’t work,” Porte added.
“So it was nice to win up to Paracombe and the BMC boys were just unbelievable and looked after me the whole day.”
Earlier on the stage, Germany’s Jasha Sütterlin got a lead of four-and-a-half minutes after making a break away soon after the first intermediate sprint.
Team Sky put in a real hard effort in the peloton to pull him back with 40km remaining, but were then hit with a massive blow when well-fancied Sergio Henao suffered a problem and dropped off the back of the pack.
Henao had to dig deep to get back to the field, but the set-back ruined any hope he had of taking the stage win.
Aussie sprint sensation Caleb Ewan started the day in the ochre jersey as overall race leader after claiming the opening stage in a thrilling photo finish.
But the steep uphill finish to the 148.5km second stage from Sterling to Paracombe gave him no realistic chance of holding onto his position at the front of the race.
Even so, he put in a lung-bursting spurt at the front to try to set things up for team-mates Simon Gerrans and Esteban Chaves – before they were blown away by Porte’s decisive late move.
