The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Form shows Richie Porte should be BMC's leader

Richie Porte wins on Willunga Hill. (Team Sky)
Expert
17th July, 2016
9

Stage 15 of the Tour de France, and another chance in the mountains saw Chris Froome and Team Sky once again dominate – but the only real storyline to come from the stage was that Richie Porte once again showed why he must be the outright BMC leader.

The American-based BMC outfit have been trying to run tactics with split leadership between Van Garderen and their off-season signing Porte throughout the Tour, but it is now time to make the call.

No longer can they go on with a pair of leaders. It simply doesn’t work. You need one working for the other, and Van Garderen could turn into a super domestique in the mountains – something that now needs to happen urgently if they want to save the Tour.

The chance for Porte to actually win the race, given he now sits in seventh position over four minutes down on the lead appears gone – but it is more a case of bad luck than bad form or bad riding.

While it must be acknowledged that, exactly as was the case in the Criterium du Dauphine Porte hasn’t been able to put in an attack of any note – then again, neither has anyone else – and despite this he has clearly proven to be the best option for BMC.

On Stage 15, riding up the Grand Colombier which is one of the most famous mountains in the Tour, Van Garderen was just about the only general classification rider to be dropped as Astana moved to the front and set a heavy tempo.

The Astana leader Fabio Aru would mount an attack, followed by Alejandro Valverde and Van Garderen would lose almost a minute and a half, seeing him surrender his position to Porte on the general classification.

Regardless of whether Van Garderen had managed to stay with the front group or not overnight, the decision should have already been made by BMC. Truthfully, it seems to be something they are reluctant to do, and maybe there is merit behind that given the bad luck of Porte not only in this Tour de France, but right throughout his Grand Tour career.

Advertisement

One only needs to look back as far as last year’s Giro d’Italia to see that Porte doesn’t seem to have luck when it comes to riding the three week tours, compared to the seven to ten day tours, which the Australian excels at.

Coming into the Tour, you have to remember that while Van Garderen was struggling through his lead-up races and form, Porte looked to be in some good form at the Dauphine not losing the wheel of Froome all week despite not being able to attack him.

The bottom line is, that form for Porte has carried over to the Tour de France, even taking into account his below expectations display in the individual time trial on Stage 14

When the Tour went up the now infamous stage to Mont Ventoux on Thursday, Porte was the only one out of all the general classification contenders who could match the pace with Froome before Mollema came across the gap.

BMC would be much better off getting their tactics in order before the race returns to the true mountains following a rest day on Tuesday.

To take time from Sky it has been shown time and time again, not just during this year’s Tour de France, but ever since they started their dominant run of results in 2012 that it was going to take aggression and perfect tactics.

These tacts have to be in the form of a two-pronged attack, something that really should have been displayed by both BMC and Movistar during Stage 15 over the Colombier – instead they sat behind Sky and barely looked interested in forcing the race or being aggressive.

Advertisement

It will need to start from Wednesday’s next mountain stage for someone like Porte to come back and maybe claim a podium effort, but it will also take a dedicated team.

BMC also managed to miss a massive breakaway on Stage 15, something that must be addressed given their split resources – even if the resources were for either Porte or Van Garderen a rider in the breakaway is necessary to try and have support late in the stage and let’s face it, apart from their GC riders BMC have looked very shaky adding important to a man in a breakaway, particularly when it is that size.

The ball is in the court of BMC racing and their tacticians, but something needs to be done because it is simply no good having two finishers at the bottom of the top 10 when one could well have finished on the podium with the other’s support.

The Tour de France is disappearing up the road and BMC must make their mind up. Now.

Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde

close