Giro del Trentino: Richie Porte wins stage 2

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Richie Porte (Team Sky) won stage 2 of the Giro del Trentino and took the overall race lead after distancing all his overall rivals with a devastating attack two kilometres from the line at Brentonico-Parco Del Baldo.

The Australian reached the finish 16 seconds ahead of Mikel Landa (Astana) and a resurgent Damiano Cunego (Nippo - Vini Fantini), who finished third on the stage at 32 seconds. Thanks to Team Sky's strong ride in the opening team time trial stage on Tuesday, the Tasmanian now leads the general classification and pulled on the race leader’s fuchsia-coloured jersey. Landa is second overall at 24 seconds, with his Team Sky teammate Leopold Konig third at 42 seconds.

As expected, the tough Passo Santa Barbara climb, made the selection amongst the overall contenders with a group of twenty riders sweeping up the early six-rider break of the day and going on to fight for victory on the eight-kilometre climb to the finish.

Team Sky had several riders in the selection and set a fierce pace for Porte before and during the climb. Porte attacked on the steepest part of the climb, when the gradient touched 14 per cent and soloed to the finish.

Canada’s Ryder Hesjedal (Cannondale-Garmin) was part of the selection but lost ground on the climb to the finish. He finished 2:46 down.

"To be honest I didn’t feel fantastic today, I only came down from altitude on Friday and so to win with legs I had today was massive confidence boost. The effort the team put in was really the cherry on the icing on the cake," Porte said.

"When we talked on bus this morning about the stage, we wanted four guys from the team at the bottom of the last climb. We had that and it set me up for win. Having numbers was the key to victory."

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