LET’S ROLL

Porte’s primed for Tour assault

RICHIE Porte has declared himself “mentally ready” for a Tour de France battle, and he believes Chris Froome could be weakened after his Giro d’Italia victory.

Porte (right) cut a lean presence at BMC’s pre-race press conference and then cast doubt over the fourtime winner’s ability to back up from Italy’s Grand Tour in May.

“It was nice to watch him in the Giro and I hope he’s buggered. He might be,” Porte said.

“Since [Marco] Pantani it hasn’t been done. I was here in 2011 with Alberto Contador, who crushed it in the Giro and was fifth — which is nothing to sneeze at — but couldn’t back it up in the Tour. I was in good condition at the Tour de Suisse and I’m hoping to be better.

“I was ill so I had a quiet start to the season, but the team had faith in me, letting me train at home.”

While Porte again defended Froome over his controversial salbutamol case, he described Team Sky’s release of Froome’s Giro data as “fake news”.

The British team had released a series of documents to the BBC two days after Froome’s case was dropped by WADA, showing the rider’s calorie consumption and power output on key stages.

“I think they put it out there in the hope that people will under-fuel,” Porte said. “But we’re all pros, we know how to fuel, we don’t need to read what Sky say they’re doing. We’ve been doing this long enough to know how to eat.”

The data drop has done little to satisfy the French public, with the 105th edition of the Tour de France starting tonight with a backdrop of anger and uncertainty.

Froome was greeted with a chorus of boos, jeers and whistles at the team presentation.

It came as French star Romain Bardet called for calm.

“We have to respect each of the riders, not least Chris Froome, a four-time winner,” Bardet said yesterday.