Tour Down Under: Porte wins again on Willunga Hill

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Richie Porte (BMC Racing) solidified his overall lead at the Tour Down Under on Saturday, once again proving he's easily the strongest rider at the WorldTour opener by riding away from the rest of the contenders on Willunga Hill to take his second stage win of the race. Nathan Haas (Dimension Data) put in an impressive effort on the climb, finishing ahead of Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott) to take second.

Porte now leads the overall by 48 seconds over Chaves, while Haas jumped to third overall, 51 seconds back. Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), who started the day second overall, struggled on the final climb and dropped out of the top 10.

Porte arrived at the bottom of the climb with all the major contenders after the peloton reeled in the survivors from the day's breakaway. Team Sky set the tempo at the bottom for Sergio Henao, but Port was having none of it and jumped away with about 2km remaining. Rafael calls (Lotto Soudal) and Chaves initially tried to stay with him, but just like on the stage 2 climb to Paracombe, they were no match of this power.

Porte acknowledged his performance on Willunga Hill made his job on Sunday a bit easier with another dominant performance on Willunga Hill.

"I think it will make tomorrow a little bit more relaxed for us," he said.

Porte also said his performance so far this week, with another stage win on the difficult Paracombe climb, bodes well for his season.

"This is not an easy climb, so to win it is great for morale," he said. "Obviously the biggest goal this year is in July at the Tour de France, but things are going well."

How it happened

While it may have been dethroned of its status as ‘queen stage’ of the Tour Down Under, the familiar stage 5 roll out from McLaren Vale, out to the beach for three circuits, and up Willunga Hill twice was buzzing with anticipation and nerves from riders and fans alike.

The McLaren Vale start saw 132 riders burst out of the blocks with Julien Berard (AG2R La Mondiale) and Will Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac) quick to make a move as Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data) and Arnaud Courteille (FDJ) decided it was a break they wanted to infiltrate. The peloton thought otherwise and brought the duo back.

Clarke tried again and was joined by Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) in the KOM jersey, Jeremy Maison (FDJ), and yesterday’s co-most combative rider Jack Bauer (Quick - Step Floors). The quartet established a minute lead over the chasing peloton in a matter of kilometres as the bunch considered then accepted the breakaway.

The BMC-controlled peloton let the break get out to a touch over 2:30 and let it hover over the circuits around Aldinga and back through the start line in McLaren Vale. BMC’s presence of six riders dropped to four as the race closed within 50km of the finish line, but the gap continued to hover around two minutes. De Gent decided to push the pace and as a result, the break’s advantage ballooned out to almost three minutes.

At the 30km to go mark, the four leaders turned onto lap one of two up Willunga with a 2:30 minute advantage over the bunch. Clarke was the first casualty in the breakaway, going backwards as the quartet started to ascend the 3km climb. Team Sunweb and UAE Abu Dhabi came to the fore of the chasing peloton behind the now-three leaders before Chris Hamilton decided to have a dig and shake things up.

Bahrain-Merida’s Giovanni Visconti jumped onto Hamilton’s wheel with the duo hanging out in front the peloton. At the head of the race, De Gent temporarily took the lead in the KOM classification by 16 points over Porte as he led Bauer over the finish line for lap one, 1:45 minutes ahead of Hamilton and Visconti and the peloton 10 seconds behind the duo.

Team Sky, Lotto Soudal, Orica-Scott and BMC swelled to the front after cresting to the climb and racing down Crest Road. On the back half of the lap around Penny’s Hill Road and McCurtie Road before taking the left-hand turn into Main Road on the long straight into the base of the climb, the gap continued to fall towards the one-minute mark.

With 10km to go, the gap was down to 45 seconds for the three leaders, with Sky, Orica and BMC continuing the chase to set up it leaders for the final ascent. Ian Stannard buried himself along Main Road to ensure hard and fast run into the climb, further shredding the size of the already reduced peloton. Daryl Impey did the same for Orica-Scott as Porte was down to just one teammate in Rohan Dennis. With 6km left in the race the three leaders quickly spat out the back once caught by the peloton, bar Bauer who turned workhorse for one final dig.

Izaguirre was quickly going backwards on the first few hundred metres of the climb with Kenny Elissonde taking up the pace for Henao. Sebastian Heano took over when Elissonde pulled off, then briefly slipped away and had his own gap as Chaves looked to others to chase him down. That was enough to spur on Porte, who jumped out of the saddle, quickly caught and passed Sebastian Henao then drilled it for the line, padding his overall lead by another 20 seconds.

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