Richie Porte said clinching his maiden Tour Down Under victory was the perfect way to bounce back from last year’s Olympic disappointment.
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“After crashing in Rio and injuring myself in a quite nasty crash it was not too hard to be motivated for this race,” the Launceston cyclist said after confirming a 48-second win in Adelaide.
“I had a good break and came back refreshed physically and mentally and to win this race means a helluva lot. It’s brilliant.”
The BMC team leader won both hilltop finishes to establish the second biggest winning margin in the event’s 19-year history.
Just a week before his 32nd birthday, Porte stayed out of trouble in Sunday’s 90-kilometre criterium which saw former Launceston Classic winner Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) complete a clean sweep of Australian stage wins with his fourth of the week.
“The Tour Down Under was good for me this year with two hilltop finishes and it’s incredible to come back and win after being so close the last two years,” Porte said.
“BMC sent a team down which was so strong and I really owe it to my teammates – each day they got me across the line and it’s a massive credit to them.
"The journalists will say that the race was over yesterday but it's by no means over...this is a hard last criterium
“It's always a bit hard on the head for me especially to do a race like this so to get through unscathed and win the race finally is a fantastic feeling.”
Having missed out by nine seconds in 2016, just two the year before and 10 in 2014, Porte finally added his name to an honour role that reads like a who’s who of Australian cycling including Stuart O’Grady, Michael Rogers, Patrick Jonker, Simon Gerrans, Allan Davies, Cam Meyer and BMC teammate Rohan Dennis.
He added his home country’s only Grand Tour race to wins in Volta ao Algarve (2012), Volta a Catalunya (2015), Giro del Trentino (2015) and Paris–Nice (2013, 2015).
Porte destroyed the field with a stunning attack on stage two and repeated the feat on Saturday as he won at Willunga for the fourth year in a row.
Finishing in the main group on Sunday confirmed his overall winning margin of 48 seconds over Colombia’s Johan Chaves.
Although Hobart’s Nathan Earle dropped out of the top 10 in the final stage, his 11th-placed finish (+1:06) helped earn the youthful Uni-SA the team classification.