After closing out his season earlier than originally planned Richie Porte (BMC Racing) is starting to plot his 2017 campaign with another assault on the Tour Down Under likely to kick-start his season.
Porte, who finished fifth at the Tour de France, crashed out of the Olympics and chose to use his early end to the season to have his tonsils removed in the US. At the recent Tour of Britain the 31-year-old talked to Cyclingnews about his first season at BMC and his early hopes for next year.
"I’ve really only just talked about but I think, for sure, I'll do Tour Down Under. And I think that with the Paracombe stage and the Willunga it's going to be a different race to the one I've seen. Adelaide in January, it's the most relaxed and cool race we do all year. The Tour is obviously the biggest but I think that races like Tour Down Under and Tour of Britain have found their niche," Porte told Cyclingnews.
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The rest of Porte's 2017 schedule is far from concrete. He will target the Tour de France in July but his build-up towards the season centrepiece has still to be decided by the rider and his BMC management. For Porte, however, the aim is to return to his winning ways and he has targeted week-long stage races.
"I'd like to do what I did last year in 2015, which was start well and win more races, like a Paris-Nice, a Romandie or a Catalunya and have a bit more confidence going into the Tour. This year the Tour, I knew that I was going in there with good condition but it would have been nice to have a few stage wins or GC wins before the Tour."
Porte moved to BMC at the start of 2016 after several seasons with Team Sky. The Australian was brought into the American outfit in order to co-lead their GC ambitions with Tejay van Garderen – the squad's longstanding leader in stage races.
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