After having said goodbye to Australian racing through January, Richie Porte (Ineos Grenadiers) is looking ahead to Europe with the goal of going out with a win this season as he draws the curtain on a career regularly punctuated by trips to the top step to claim overall victory.
Porte has often started the year with an early-season WorldTour victory at Australia’s Tour Down Under but the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the cancellation of the international race again this season.
The Tasmanian still kicked off his year of racing at the domestic replacement event, the Santos Festival of Cycling, mentoring riders in a young national team. It may have provided a fitting farewell to the South Australian race, but Porte is now stepping into his last season of racing in Europe in the unusual position of not already having a victory for the season on the results sheet.
That is a situation he is looking to change and preferably quickly.
“I go back and race Tirreno-Adriatico which is a race I’ve hardly ridden,” said Porte after finishing the Santos Festival of Cycling. “I’ve raced it once and I’d love to win something like that in my last year.”
The 37 year old has scooped up at least one WorldTour stage or overall victory every year since 2013, including the Tour de Suisse, Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné, as well as Paris-Nice and the Tour Down Under twice. However, Tirreno-Adriatico is a week-long stage race he's yet to complete, let alone win.
In 2014 he had to pull out after stage 4 through illness and then suffered an upper respiratory infection when he was set to line up again at the seven stage race in 2018. The race – which starts on March 7 with a 13.9km ITT and includes 14,000 metres of climbing during the 1131km of racing – is one final year target where he has unfinished business.
As far as the rest of his calendar goes, Porte won’t be racing the Tour de France, where he came third overall in 2020, but will be turning his focus on the Giro d’Italia. The Italian Grand Tour is the race where his GC potential became clear in 2010, after he wore pink for three stages during the race and finished seventh overall.
His focus for the year, however, goes beyond Tirreno-Adriatico and the Giro, with the clear-cut aim being to finish 13 years of WorldTour racing on a high note.
“My goal is to try at least win a bike race this year, somewhere,” said Porte.
He will have seven months of racing to do it in, as the rider is currently expecting to finish in September, in a home nation race for his team, Ineos Grenadiers.
“At the moment my last bike race will be the Tour of Britain,” Porte said.
