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Australian cycling star Richie Porte will go into this Giro d’Italia brimming with confidence and determined to prove his doubters wrong.
A decade after Cadel Evans made his Tour de France debut, now it is Porte’s time to prove he is a three-week Grand Tour contender.
There are striking parallels between the circumstances of Evans’ 2005 Tour debut and this first time that Porte starts a Grand Tour as the designated team leader.
Evans, the only Australian to win the Tour, retired earlier this year and Porte is now this country’s top Grand Tour rider.
“He’s still someone who I look up to,” Porte told AAP.
“I sort of feel that (comparison) too – I’m 30 now, I’m only getting stronger physically, but also mentally.
“I’m ready to step up and lead a team.
“I have a fantastic team at the Giro to help me.”
Just as Evans had shown his potential in the Grand Tours by leading the 2002 Giro for a day, Porte stunned the sport with his seventh place overall at the 2010 edition.
But despite their undoubted ability, they also have had plenty of detractors.
Porte’s credentials in one-week tours are impeccable.
But the knock on him is when he has a bad day in a Grand Tour – as every rider is prone to do – his are particularly brutal.
The Tasmanian is coming into the Giro on the back of stellar early-season form.
His nine race wins have consigned last year’s well-documented health problems to history and Porte is ready to showcase his true potential in the Grand Tours – the Giro, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana.
“Everybody always says I will have a bad day somewhere,” the Sky rider said.
“Yeah, I have bad days – everybody does – but I don’t see it as me having a bad day always.
“I had a bad week last year in the Tour because I was sick – 2013, we got attacked by the whole peloton, basically.
“Talk’s cheap, isn’t it – I’m really looking forward to this Giro, I can’t wait for it to start.”
This is Porte’s eighth Grand Tour, but until now he has gone into each as a domestique, or support rider, for teammates such as Brad Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Now he is the leader.
Porte will face plenty of strong opposition, with Spaniard Alberto Contador a six-time Grand Tour winner and Colombian Rigoberto Uran also a proven Grand Tour rider.
But the Australian said that could work to his advantage, with plenty of attention certain to be focused on better-credentialled rivals.
“I know it’s going to be hard – Alberto is Alberto Contador, he’s not known to go down without one hell of a fight,” Porte said.
“At the end of the day, he’s the big favourite.
“He’s the one, it’s a little bit like it’s his race to lose.
“But there’s also Rigoberto Uran, who’s been second the last two years.”
Porte is among 11 Australians riding in this year’s Giro.
The others are Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling), Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal), Michael Rogers (Saxo Tinkoff), Calvin Watson (Trek) and the following members of the Australian Orica-GreenEDGE team – Michael Matthews, Simon Clarke, Luke Durbridge, Simon Gerrans, Michael Hepburn and Brett Lancaster.
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