Many people were tipping Richie Porte (Saxo Bank-SunGard) as a rider to watch in this year’s Giro d’Italia. The 26-year-old Australian finished seventh in his race debut last year, having led for three days, and won the white jersey for the best young rider. For one reason or another, things have not gone so well for Porte on a personal level in this year’s race; but as a member of race leader Alberto Contador’s team, he is enjoying a different role entirely.
He finished today’s mountain time trial between Belluno an Nevegal in 94th place, 3’41” behind Contador, but had not been riding with his personal result in mind.
“It was hard!” Porte told VeloNation shortly after crossing the line. “The plan was to conserve as much energy as we can for Alberto; but it’s hard to conserve energy on a course like that! But it’s good fun, and I guess the fight starts tomorrow.”
Although Contador now leads second placed Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) by 4’58” and third placed Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) by 5’45”, Saxo Bank-SunGard is preparing itself for attacks from the Italian teams in the mountainous remainder of the race.
“The peloton hasn’t been too kind to our team,” Porte explained, “every man and his dog wants to attack us. But with Alberto, not to be too cocky, but he’s a class above.
“He’s an awesome guy and it’s fantastic to ride for him,” he added.
Having finshed seventh on his debut, Porte is experiencing the Giro d’Italia from the other end of the classification this year, and currently sits in 113th place, more than two and a quarter hours behind his leader.
“It is tough, you know,” he said, “especially for me; this time last year I was up there in the classification, and this time I’m in the gruppetto and struggling to hold on there. But I’m riding for Alberto and I’m having a ball.
“The stage a couple of days ago was ridiculously hard and I’d have hated to have seen it if we had gone up [Monte] Crostis. But it’s the Giro, it’s a great race and I love it!”
While Porte and the rest of the Saxo Bank-SunGard team are prepared to defend Contador against the aggressions of the Spaniard’s rivals in the overall classification, he doesn’t see where any of them will conceivably be able to put any telling pressure on Contador.
“Alberto has shown,” he said, “you can say that they’ll attack him in the downhill but he goes downhill well!
“Where do you attack Alberto?” he asked. “I don’t know.”