Porte leads Saxo Bank 1-2 finish

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Richie Porte (Saxo Bank Sungard) earned his first win of the season as he powered to victory in the stage 5 time trial at the Tour of Denmark. The 26-year-old Australian stopped the clock in 15:09 while his teammate Gustav Larsson made it a 1-2 finish for Saxo Bank Sungard as he finished runner-up, 10 seconds off the pace.

Alex Dowsett (Sky) rounded out the top three, 17 seconds behind Porte.

Simon Gerrans (Sky) put in a fine effort to finish in fifth place and remains in the leader's jersey with one stage remaining. Daniel Bennati (Leopard Trek) moves into second overall, eight seconds behind the Australian, while Denmark's Michael Mørkøv holds third, 26 seconds back.

Matti Breschel (Rabobank) started the stage in second overall, only four seconds behind Gerrans, but dropped to 13th overall with a 76th place finish in the time trial.

"I'm really happy with my performance tonight," said Gerrans. "It wasn't a course that suited me at all so I probably put in my best ever performance in a time trial and I'm pretty happy to still be in the yellow jersey heading into tomorrow's final stage."

"That was a very impressive time trial today for Simon. A good day to say the least!" said Sky Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist. "He'd been going really good of course but with the leader's jersey on your shoulders you tend to get some morale from that and he went faster. So together with great shape and good legs he pulled it off. It was a really nice one.

"Alex did a really good ride today too to get third. The same with the other guys and having the jersey lifts the whole team. It's fantastic and we have a lead in the team classification too."

It was a bittersweet stage for Mørkøv, who hoped to enter the final stage in the leader's jersey, but nonetheless he's now in a position to finish on the final podium.

"Prior to the race, I would really have appreciated a spot on the podium in this race but after a promising start and a great day in Vejle yesterday, I really believed that I could conquer the top step of the podium," said Mørkøv. "My time trial was alright but I'm sad I missed the opportunity to take the jersey and bring it all the way to Copenhagen in front of friends and family and to celebrate the win with my hard-working teammates. But that's racing and tomorrow we'll be focusing on maintaining the position."

With one stage remaining, Team Sky must remain vigilant to defend the leader's jersey. "The thing is there are bonus seconds in the sprint tomorrow so I’m sure the Leopard guys will try and get those for Bennati," said Ljungqvist. "But we have some strong sprinters too and we will do what we can to make sure he doesn’t get any bonus seconds – that’s for sure."