​Having protected its Tasmanian leader throughout the 212.5-kilometre stage from Verviers, BMC Racing Team assumed its place at the front of the peloton approaching the uphill finish in the French town of Longwy.

Porte surprised everyone by attacking inside the final kilometer in an attempt to set up victory for Belgian teammate Greg Van Avermaet 

The reduced peloton caught Porte 400m from the line and although Olympic champion Van Avermaet launched his sprint he was not able to catch eventual winner Peter Sagan (Bora Hansgrohe) and settled for fourth place.

"I was put in a fantastic position there in the final,” Porte said.

“I felt good but with 500 meters to go, I knew it was a bit too far out. I think it's good for the team. They were really strong today so it's a shame we couldn't quite finish it off.

“For the last 40km it was a hell of a fight. It was a dangerous and tricky final so it was nice to get through that one unscathed. All of the guys chipped in today and they were really strong. It's good for the confidence to have a bit of a crack."

Van Avermaet praised both his team and its leader, who claimed three sprint points by coming in 14th.

"I think Richie did a hard job,” he said. “We had both options to play and I think this is the best approach to not lose time. Maybe you gain some seconds over the other guys if you are at the front of the peloton so for me it is the best solution.”

Porte sits 20^th overall, 47 seconds behind Welshman Geraint Thomas whose Team Sky leader Chris Froome was the big mover of the day, climbing up to second on +12 seconds.

Will Clarke sits second in a Tour of Austria being dominated by his Cannondale-Drapac team.

Back-to-back top-five finishes on the two opening stages have put Belgian Sep Vanmarcke into the yellow race leader's jersey.

But Clarke has climbed a podium place after also featuring prominently.

Third in the short 800-metre uphill time trial prologue which he had won the previous year, the Campbell Town 32-year-old finished stage two in a reduced peloton to sit three seconds behind his teammate overall.

“I trained a lot on my power for the short efforts leading up to the race, and had a target of doing well here,” Clarke said.

“I would have liked to have repeated my win in the prologue from last year but I came up a bit short.”

Cannondale-Drapac didn’t go into the Tour of Austria with general classification ambitions. The multi-national eight-rider squad has been tasked with racing opportunistically in the pursuit of stage wins.

The new race leader expects to hand over the yellow jersey soon, potentially to a teammate.

“There will be tough stages to come, too hard for me to keep the leader’s jersey,” Vanmarcke said. “With the team, we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s stage as it suits us, with a tough final. Our focus will be specifically on the stage win tomorrow, since we have several riders within the team that can win.”