2010 was the year that saw Richie Porte (Saxo Bank-SunGard) burst onto the scene. In his first year with the ProTeam, the 25-year-old Australian won the time trial stage of the Tour de Romandie, in early May, before going on to finish seventh overall in the Giro d’Italia, his first ever Grand Tour, after having led the race for three days.
What annoys the Australian the most about this success though, according to feltet.dk, is that his meteoric rise is met by innuendo and suspicion. Porte, in an interview with Sporten.dk, guarantees his own cleanliness insisting that the sport was now heading in the right direction in terms of doping.
“I can only vouch for myself, but if it was too bad I wouldn’t be able to stay in the sport. I was seventh in the Giro and I have not f*$@ing cheated.”
Suspicion comes, says Porte, from cycling fans but also from some within the sport who are looking to profit from the doping positives of others. Sometimes he finds the finger pointing from some people on the internet to be a little too much and has to react.
“There’s always someone who cries and hopes that you cheated and get caught after you have won a race,” he said. “Someone wrote on Facebook that I was too ‘hot’ to believe in, so I got angry and sent him a personal message.”
While he thinks that a number of riders might suspect that he is less than clean, he doesn’t care and points to the new generation of riders coming through in the sport who don’t belong to the old doping culture.
“I’m sure there are riders who I’ve raced with before that thought I’ve cheated,” he continued, “but f*$@ them. Guys like [Riccardo] Riccò don’t change anything. There is a stigma stuck to the guys, but look at us young riders, we’re a new generation and there’s been a big mental shift. Look at the Danes, Australians and Englishmen, that’s where young riders will come from and take over.”
With the future of Saxo Bank-SunGard’s new Tour de France winning recruit Alberto Contador still uncertain, Porte might find himself the team’s number one heading into the Tour in July.