Richie Porte (Team Sky) took control of the Giro del Trentino with a solo attack on the climb to the finish in Brentonico, making it clear to his rivals in the four-day race and his wider rivals for the Giro d'Italia that he is on the best form of his career and still on a roll after his wins at Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya.
Team Sky forced the key selection on the 12km-long Passo Santa Barbara climb and then Porte took off alone, finishing 16 seconds ahead of Mikel Landa (Astana) and 32 seconds ahead of Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini), who brought home the remains of the chase group.
Porte seemed on a different level but denied winning had been easy or that he had peaked too early with the Giro d'Italia still two weeks away.
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"If only it was easy…" he said in the post-stage press conference. "It's just nice to come here and win a stage like today. It was a hard stage. To be honest I didn't feel fantastic, I only came down from altitude on Friday and so to win with the legs I had today was a massive confidence boost. The effort the team put inspired me and was really the cherry on the icing on the cake.
"Our strong young American Ian Boswell stepped up and was fantastic. He attacked at the beginning of the big climb and forced the selection. After that it was the Kosta [Kanstantsin Siutsou] show. He rode the whole climb. When we talked on bus this morning about the stage, we wanted four guys from the team at the bottom of the last climb. We had that and it set me up for win. Having numbers was the key to victory. That set me up for my attack."
Porte made an instinctive attack with two kilometres to go, looking to distance some key overall rivals.
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