ALREADY the only Australian winner of the prestigious Paris-Nice stage race, Launceston's Richie Porte is ideally placed to claim the title for a second time in two years.
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A trademark blistering mountain-top burst delivered the 30-year-old his fourth major win of a sensational season and left him ideally placed to repeat what he has described as the biggest win of his career.
Porte told The Examiner last week he was "super motivated" to try and repeat his 2013 win and with three stages of the 1141-kilometre race remaining sits a second off the lead with his favourite time trial climb still to come.
A powerful display on the torturous 204km queen stage from Varenne-sur-Allier over eight categorised climbs to Croix de Chaubouret saw Porte and Sky teammate Geraint Thomas storm to a one-two finish.
“That was a great performance from the team,” said a delighted Porte.
“We took it on from the bottom of that last climb – it wasn’t easy on there, so to finish first and second is fantastic.
“We’ve got two more hard days coming up now and then a time trial on the Col d’Eze. I love that climb and I’d love to have a good ride there. I think I can, but as I said, there’s two very hard stages coming before it. I’m in a good position though, and having such a strong team here will definitely help.
“With Geraint and I up there on the general classification now, it’s good to have two cards to play. The dream is to hold the yellow jersey on Sunday evening. I love this race and I’d love to win it again. It’s not over until it’s over, and we’ll have to see how the next three days go.”
After an off season training with Tour de France champion Chris Froome in Tasmania, Porte has since claimed the Australian time trial title and stages of the Tour Down Under, Vuelta ao Algarve and now Paris-Nice.
When Thomas accelerated with 3km to go, the race's main contenders were forced to respond which allowed Porte to follow their wheels before attacking himself.
Thomas in turn locked onto his wheel and the pair punched the air together at the line, eight seconds ahead of nearest rival Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx – Quick-Step) who narrowly reclaimed the yellow jersey from Aussie Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge).
The race finishes on Sunday with a 9.5km uphill individual time trial on the Col d'Éze in Nice which is near Porte's European base in Monaco and where he clinched the title two years ago.
Stage result: 1 Richie Porte (AUS) Sky 5hr 18min 39sec; 2 Geraint Thomas (GBR) Sky st; 3 Michal Kwiatkowski (POL) Etixx-QuickStep 0:00:08; 4 Jakob Fuglsang (DEN) Astana st; 5 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC 0:00:17; 6 Rui Costa (POR) Lampre-Merida 0:00:24; 7 Tony Gallopin (FRA) Lotto Soudal st; 8 Fabio Aru (ITA) Astana st 9 Rafael Valls (ESP) Lampre-Merida st; 10 Simon Spilak (SLO) Katusha st.
General classification: 1 Michal Kwiatkowski (POL) Etixx-QuickStep 19hr 44min 11sec; 2 Richie Porte (AUS) Sky 0:00:01; 3 Geraint Thomas (GBR) Sky 0:00:03; 4 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC 0:00:27; 5 Jakob Fuglsang (DEN) Astana 0:00:32; 6 Tony Gallopin (FRA) Lotto-Soudal 0:00:38; 7 Rui Costa (POR) Lampre-Merida 0:00:41; 8 Gorka Izagirre (ESP) Movistar 0:00:44; 9 Tiago Machado (POR) Katusha 0:00:50; 10 Rafael Valls (ESP) Lampre-Merida 0:00:51.