Richie Porte: "I didn’t enjoy my Tour last year"

The INEOS Grenadiers' veteran Richie Porte has recently announced that 2022 will be his last season as a professional riders and has left some indications regarding his goals. However, he has opened up more about his last year.

“I didn’t enjoy my Tour last year and to be quite fair it’s not the race where you want people that aren’t enjoying themselves. I just want to try and enjoy my last year, which the team are totally good with.” Porte finished a distant 38th place last year at the Tour de France and never managed to show his top level, which came as a surprise seeing how he came into the race just having won the Critérium du Dauphiné.

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“To win the Dauphine last year at 36 … and take on and beat guys who then went and podiumed in the Tour after was nice. But also, I think for me last year by the end of the Dauphine I was on fumes. I needed a break and that was probably the age catching up a little bit too. You just can’t go and go and go,”

Regarding the Tour de France 2020, where he finally managed to achieve a career-long goal of being on the podium in Paris, he also had something to say: “Pogacar is a massive favourite, but then we had four guys, myself included, who probably could have really done something in the race, but I didn’t enjoy having that pressure, then not having the support either."

“I also got what I wanted out of the Tour in 2020 when I podiumed. That was something I was always striving for and then to finally get it, I don’t feel like I have that much business with the Tour. Yeah, sure I would have loved to have won an individual stage, but I can retire happy having not done that. It’s something I would have loved to have done, but it didn’t happen.”

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Once again though he pointed out where the ambitions lie for this season, having a supporting role in the Giro d'Italia as the most proeminent goal of the season. “I’d love to win a stage of the Giro. My first Giro I ended up in the pink jersey, which is still to this day, it’s like what, 12 years ago, but still a massive career highlight, or one of the career highlights,”

“My big aim is to try and enjoy it. As stressful as the job is and high pressure, I know it’s been a pretty incredible way to earn a living and see the world. Living on the other side of the world has got its challenges, but it’s also a pretty cool thing to have done. It’ll be nice to enjoy that last European year.