Porte takes Tour Down Under crown from Impey on Willunga Hill

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Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) took his second Tour Down Under crown on Sunday at the top of Willunga Hill at the end of a stage marked by a tense showdown with a large breakaway that stayed away late into the final climb.

British rider Matt Holmes was the only breakaway rider Porte couldn't drop when the Australian attacked from the field the second time up Willunga Hill, and the Lotto Soudal rider was able to out-kick Porte ahead of the line to take his first-ever professional win in what was his first WorldTour race.

Overnight leader Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) couldn't hold Porte's pace on the final climb and lost more than 30 seconds, ending his hopes for a third-consecutive victory.

Porte had hoped to add a seventh consecutive win on Willunga Hill, dating back to 2014, but Holmes proved just a bit quicker in the finale after Porte failed to dislodge him with an attack that did unstick Holmes' fellow breakaway survivor Michael Storer (Team Sunweb). Holmes clung to Porte's wheel over the hardest section of the climb, and then attacked through the final corner to take the win, while Porte celebrated his overall victory when he crossed the line three seconds later – his second title after also taking the GC in 2017 – while Astana's Manuele Boaro was third across the line.

In a post-race interview, Porte acknowledged the pressure that the breakaway had put on him and his team at the end of the race.

"AG2R came in to help us," Porte said of the French team that had hoped to set up Roman Bardet for the stage win, while the Mitchelton-Scott team of Impey chose to keep their powder dry.

"I mean, I understand why Mitchelton played their tactics, and credit to them because they've been awesome all week, but I think my today were absolutely fantastic," Porte said.

Holmes, the 26-year-old Briton who is on his first year with Lotto Soudal after riding with Madison Genesis since 2014, appeared oddly underwhelmed by his first pro win.

"I wasn't really thinking about the gap," he said of the late moments of the race when the peloton was approaching. "I was just thinking about the group I was with, and I thought there was no way I would win from that situation; it was such a good group.

"I've never really raced up a climb. I've been stuck in Britain for the last six years, which is not a bad thing. This is my second hilltop finish this week, and it seems to suit me."

How it unfolded

The 151.5km final stage from McLaren Vale to Willunga Hill consisted of three loops on a larger circuit that took the peloton briefly along the ocean and its beaches before turning inland back toward Willunga and a shorter circuit that included two trips up the famous climb, where the race ended.

Attacks started immediately aftr the neutral flag dropped, and after a few starts and fits, a 26-rider breakaway formed that would animate the day.

In the group were eventual stage winner Matt Holmes and his Lotto Soudal teammate Jon Dibben, Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo), Mathias Le Turnier and Kenneth Van Bilsen (Cofidis), Shane Archbold and Iljo Keisse (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Luke Rowe (Team Ineos), Joey Rosskopf (CCC Team), Andre Greipel and Rick Zabel (Israel Start-Up Nation), Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Hansgrohe), Vegard Stake Laengen and Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), Manuele Boaro (Astana), Michael Storer (Team Sunweb), Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ), Juri Hollmann (Movistar), Dylan Sunderland (NTT Pro Cycling), Bert-Jan Lindeman (Jumbo-Visma), Domen Novak and Marco Haller (Bahrain McLaren), Mitch Docker and Jonas Rutsch (EF Pro Cycling), and Sam Welsford and Cameron Scott (UniSA).

The escapees' gap shot up to 4:30, and the chase for the day was on. The large group up front allowed some teammates to work and others to sit on, and Holmes benefited from having Dibben taking pulls and keeping the rest of the riders in the break happy.

Greipel flexed his sprinting muscles at the first intermediate sprint with 88km to go, easily beating Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates). At sprint 2 with 48km to go, UniSA's Sam Welsford took out the top prize ahead of Armirail and Zabel.

But the biggest prizes of the day waioted at Willunga Hill, where Rosskopf was hoping to his mountains classification jersey by taking top points.

The KOM came with 22.4km to go, but Rosskopf didn't wait around to leave anything to chance. He lit out early in the climb and almost immediately cut the group in half. As others faded back toward the peloton, the smaller lead group pressed on. Among the riders still there were Mitch Docker, Jonas Rutsch, Luke Rowe, Matthew Holmes, Joey Rosskopf, Michael Storer, Dylan Sunderland, Vegard Stake Laengen, Marco Marcato, Bruno Armirail and Manuele Boaro.

The leaders made it around to the bottom of the final climb with two minutes in hand, and it was enough for some but not for others.

Luke Rowe attacked the lead group with Jonas Rutsch, and then Rutsch countered and dropped Rowe as the others struggled to stay on terms with the increasingly frantic attacks.

Back in the peloton, Impey and  Porte marked each other initially, but it became clear early that Impey didn't have it in his legs on this day to challenge. He faded back in the group as Porte pressed on and set the tempo for the GC riders, eventually attacking and going after the remnants of the breakaway ahead.

Results

General classification