Richie Porte
INTERNATIONALLY renowned French newspaper L'Equipe said it best with the headline: ``Door touches the sky''.
As he basked in the glory of the biggest win of his career, Team Sky cyclist Richie Porte would probably forgive the internet translation service for including his surname in its services.
But the story which began life as ``Porte touche le ciel'' was spot on as the Hadspen sensation's options appear as wide open as his name in French and as limitless as the team he rides for.
Any uncertainty as to the standing of the Paris-Nice stage race should be eliminated by a glance at the also-rans.
The likes of fellow contenders Andrew Talansky, Tejay van Garderen and Sylvain Chavanel may not be household names to the uninitiated, but elsewhere in the 151-strong field could be found reigning world champion Philippe Gilbert, two-time Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso, multiple grand tour sprint winner Alessandro Petacchi and numerous Tour de France regulars including Jens Voigt, Baden Cooke, Denis Menchov and Nicolas Roche.
Scot David Millar, who denied Porte a medal in the 2010 time trial world championship, came last.
Porte's dominance of the week-long 1174-kilometre tour dubbed ``The race to the sun'' but conducted in snow and heavy rain, is represented among the assorted classifications.
On the final stage he won everything: intermediate split, points, mountain, team and stage to take the lead in the World Tour rankings.
Overall he came third in the points, second in the mountains and of course first on general classification. About the only category he underperformed in was young rider, suggesting the 28-year-old needs to lift his game.
The many congratulatory Tweets make for interesting reading. Fellow Tasmanians might be expected to be pleased for him, and also South Australian star Tiffany Cromwell what with being his girlfriend and all, but when the likes of Roche, Fabian Cancellara, Robbie McEwen and Simon Gerrans chip in and SBS correspondent Mike Tomalaris starts asking Tour de France questions, the scale becomes more obvious.
No less an authority than Andy Schleck has suggested Porte could be Sky's dark horse at the Giro or Tour.
The man himself toed the party line, saying he was happy to revert to his role as a support rider for Brits Brad Wiggins and Chris Froome - who finished first and second in last year's Tour de France largely thanks to the legwork of Porte.
But is is worth noting that only twice has Sky given Porte the freedom to try to win stage races - at the Tour of Algarve last year and this week's Paris-Nice and he won them both.
It should also be remembered that Porte is not alone in championing Tasmanian cycling.
Heading into the Tirreno-Adriatico just across the border in Italy last week, one cycling website asked whether Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan or Andraacé Greipel was the best sprinter in world cycling. Matt Goss provided his own answer by out-sprinting them all to win the second stage.