Porte powers to time trial win in Criterium International

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Richie Porte, winner on the Col d'Eze a fortnight ago, picked up where he left off with victory in the 7km stage 2 time trial of the Criterium International.

The Australian’s time of 9:10 was a second faster than Manuele Boaro (Saxo-Tinkoff), with Tejay van Garderen (BMC) - a second further back – rounding out the podium.

Chris Froome, arguably the pre-race favourite on a technical, undulating course, was the first of the overall race favourites down the ramp and straight up a long drag high above the town.

His benchmark was bettered 20 minutes later by van Garderen, who was congratulated by a clearly delighted DS over the team car Tannoy.

Their joy was short lived however as Porte showed he’d lost none of the form that took him to the Paris-Nice title two weeks ago.

The top six, in fact, had a familiar look about it to those who had followed ‘The Race to the Sun’ closely, as Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) and Jean-Christophe Peraud finished in fifth and sixth respectively.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was seeing last year’s TT and overall winner Cadel Evans (BMC) all the way back in 74th, 46 seconds down on Porte.

Andy Schleck (RadioShack-Leopard), back in action after his retirement from Tirreno-Adriatico, finished just above Evans in 71st, with neo-pro team-mate Bob Jungels an impressive 7th (9:18).

As it has been since it was moved to Corsica in 2010, this year’s Criterium International will be decided on the second day.

The 176km route of stage 3 takes in a loop of the southern tip of the island before arriving back in Porto-Vecchio. From there the race heads north for 17km, where the race will be decided on the 14.1km ramp of the Col de l’Ospedale.

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