Australian guiding Spanish race favourite in search of his second Grand Tour of the season
Richie Porte (Saxo Bank-SunGard) is currently riding his second Grand Tour of the year. Having successfully guided Alberto Contador to victory in the Giro d’Italia, the Australian is now hoping to do the same for the Spaniard in the Tour.
As the race moves north, across the Loire, from the Vendée to Brittany the weather has taken a turn for the worse with the sunshine of the first three days giving way to rain.
“I’m feeling good,” said Porte to letour.fr before the stage start. “It’s a pretty dismal day of weather and I’d rather it not be wet but that’s life.
“It’s pretty obvious what we’ve got to do today: stay out of trouble,” he explained. “That’s the main goal. But there’s some good news: it’s pouring rain and Alberto really likes that. He’s happy."
While the stage finishes at the top of the Mûr-de-Bretagne, the finish line itself is 500 metres past the top of the steep climb, something that Porte hadn’t realised.
“Oh, is it really?” he asked. “I didn’t know that, I didn’t do a recon of this stage. I’m not sure if Alberto has either but our director [Bjarne Riis] knows it pretty well.”
Porte won the white jersey in the 2010 Giro, his debut in the race, having worn the pink one fro a few days. This is his first appearance in the Tour though, and notices a big difference in the size of the two races.
“This is a big race and so is the Giro but at the Tour everything is on a larger scale,” he said. “Even the press conference was more stressful. But then on the roads of all the Grand Tours it’s stressful.”
Much of that press conference stress was bound to be due to the controversy over Contador’s presence in the Tour with his positive test at the 2010 race still being appealed to the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS). It’s undeniable that the Tour is bigger than anything else I the sport though.
“The first Giro I did last year, it was crazy at the start in Holland,” he explained. “Everyone wants to make the break, everyone is fighting for wheels, trying to get in the right position but it’s enjoyable too. Yesterday was fast but it was much safer than stage one. It was intense up over the bridge in Saint-Nazaire, that was probably the most scary part.”
Since Contador is arguably the best climber in the sport, the finish of stage four is very much suited to his characteristics. An attack from the race favourite could also claw back a few of the seconds that he lost behind the crashes on stage one and in the team time trial on stage two.
“Of course if the opportunity arises, then why not?” said Porte. “He may as well have a shot but there’s been no talk of it in the team so far today."
"It would be nice if he did a repeat of the stage to Tropea in the Giro when he finished second [to Oscar Gatto – ed], and with Alberto, you never know what he’s capable of.”
Contador himself is giving little away in terms of his plans for stage four, other than to concur with popular opinion as to the favourite for the victory.
“The team has been fantastic and I thank each of my team-mates," he said after the finish of stage three. "They protected me every single kilometre through the stage...
“We were very cautious because on both sides of the road there was a cheering crowd with children, chairs and armchairs,” he continued, “which is the same sight as in the big mountains; but this is going on while we do 70 km/h.
"Tomorrow’s final is pretty complicated with a lot of tension, because the Mûr-de-Bretagne is a pretty tough slope and a great objective for a rider like Gilbert.”
Having lost so much time to Gilbert, and most of his overall rivals, on the way to the Mont des Alouettes, Contador will doubtless be closer to the front on the approach to the Mûr-de-Bretagne. Whether he wants to attack or not, and whether he can beat the Classics specialists like Gilbert to the top, remains to be seen.