Richie Porte has avoided serious injury and harm to his title chances after being hurt in a crash amid the final kilometre of stage two of the Tour Down Under.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The nasty fall happened within the last three kilometres of the 122km stage on Wednesday at Angaston that ensured riders including Porte did not lose time on the general classification.
The course had been shortened earlier in the day by 27 kilometres over concerns with Adelaide’s heatwave.
Even though temperatures reached the high 30s, cloud cover ensured it was not quite the 40-degree furnace that was feared.
The Hadspen cyclist ended the day in 68th place, but has moved up four spots to 57th after general classifications.
Fellow Tasmanian and Porte’s Trek-Segafredo teammate Will Clarke crossed over 77th and sits in 87th overall.
Porte soon after was keen to reassure his followers that he will ride onto stage three with no pre-existing injury.
“I was behind @koendekort, @ryanmullen9 and @clarkeywilbur – I had 3 big fellows with me – and we were able to pull up just after it happened,” Porte tweeted.
Other contenders to win the 2019 title including last year’s winner Daryl Impey and Canadian Mike Woods were heavily impacted by the large peloton crash.
The 2017 tour champion is expected to seriously make his first bid for overall honours in Thursday’s third stage in the Adelaide Hills.
The day eventually belonged to New Zealander Patrick Bevin after the two-time national time trial champion pulled off the biggest win of his career.
Bevin avoided the nasty incident to win that now puts him five seconds ahead of Elia Viviani.
After taking out stage one, Viviani predicted the pure sprinters could struggle on the 700m uphill finish.
The crash split the field and the reduced group that contested the sprint included Viviani, Australian sprint ace Caleb Ewan and Peter Sagan.
Spain’s Luis Leon Sanchez hit out with a long attack, but he became a springboard for Bevin’s surge. He then held off Caleb Ewan at the line for his first World Tour win.
Bevin’s win is a boost for the CCC Team, reforming in the wake of the demise of the BMC squad that had Porte as its Tour de France leader.
Bevin also showed he had come to Adelaide with strong form when he was a significant part of Tuesday’s opening breakaway.
While Ewan did not have the legs at the finish, his result was also encouraging after he and his new Lotto-Soudal team were caught out in the stage-one finish.
The temperature is forecast to ease slightly for the 146.2km stage on Thursday, which will feature six laps of a tough circuit at Uraidla.