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Stage 10 of the 2015 Giro d’Italia may have been won by a breakaway when the sprinters were expected to dominate, but that is not the story on everyones’ lips this morning.
Leader of Team Sky, Australian Richie Porte who was running third on the General Classification coming into the stage firstly, had a mechanical in the last 5km of the stage. This caused him to lose 47 seconds to the finish line behind the main peloton and drop to 1:09 behind current race leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff – Saxo).
After the puncture and with only 47 seconds being lost Contador said to the media “It doesn’t change anything. Ok, it was a big gap (time loss for Porte) for a flat stage but by the end of the Giro d’Italia that kind of difference could be insignificant.”
Contador also recognised that Porte’s strength is the individual time trial still to come on Stage 14.
However, it wasn’t the puncture and time loss that was the worst of Porte’s issues. After the comissaires reviewed the race footage it was revealed that Richie Porte had undertaken an illegal wheel change with Simon Clarke of team Orica Green Edge. The race rules stipulate that any wheel change between non teams will incur a two minute time penalty on the first offence and a fine of 200 Swiss Francs. The fourth offence would mean outright disqualification.
Simon Clarke was also hit with the same penalty.
The time penalty for Porte however now means he sits in 12th position overall, three minutes and nine seconds behind race leader Alberto Contador. From the outside it look’s like his Giro could well be over, with his only potential saving grace coming in the form of a long individual time trial.
After the penalty Sky team manager David Brailsford said “Most people would accept that that was one of the most interesting, instinctive moments of fair play we’ve seen in sport for a long time, particularly in our sport, which has been a bit blighted by issues of unfair play.”
He went onto say “there’s a lesson in there, isn’t there? That (if) it’s the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law then that’s that. We’ll keep fighting and hope we don’t get another puncture and just take it on the chin, I guess.”
Alberto Contador also expressed sympathy for Porte, when upon learning of the penalty said, “I’m sorry for Richie. At points like that in a race you’re going flat out, your heart-rate is really high, and you only think about losing as little time as possible, not the rules.”
Porte will now need to abandon his conservative race plan and launch attacks every time the race goes uphill it would seem. He won’t just be able to rely on gaining 45 seconds or a minute in the individual time trial now.
Stage 11 is fractionally hilly, finishing on the 1968 world championship circuit before Stage 12 finishes on a very steep uphill ramp. Stage 13 will be a flat one and then 14 is the individual time trial. We should expect to know a lot more about who is in contention for the race by then.
Remember to tune into The Roar every night as we bring you live coverage from every stage of the 2015 Giro d’Italia.