Porte on mission

REPRESENTING his country at the Olympics is always a career highlight for Richie Porte but Tasmania’s twowheeled rocket is not turning up to Tokyo just “for the tracksuit”.

With less than a week between the end of the Tour de France — where he finished 38th overall and helped INEOS Grenadiers teammate Richard Carapaz finish on the podium — and the Games road race, Porte will have little recovery time to tackle the 244km course, which boasts an elevation gain of 4865m.

But despite the long-haul flight and potential weary legs from the most gruelling event on the planet, Porte is determined to give Australia every chance of snatching an Olympic medal.

He is one of four riders alongside Rohan Dennis, Luke Durbridge and Lucas Hamilton in Saturday’s road race.

He will then join two-time

world champ Dennis in the individual time trial next Wednesday.

“Maybe it’s more of an advantage for us Aussies because we do long-haul flights and jet lag every year,” Porte said of immediately jumping on a plane from Paris to Japan.

“To come out of three weeks of really hard racing and then have six days to recover is not easy.

“The trick is to keep the body going so it does not totally shut down, so that will be my main goal.

“But when you have a goal like the Olympics, you put everything to the back of your mind in order to get into a good routine.

“I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and love the country and when I saw the course I was very motivated to make sure I was there.

“Having 5000 metres of altitude gain is a lot and the humidity is ridiculously hot but the Tour is good preparation in a lot of ways to be able to adapt to the heat.

“I’m not just turning up for the tracksuit. I want to be there performing as well.”

Porte will be hoping to erase the memories from the Rio 2016 Games, where he crashed out and suffered a broken scapula (inset).

The 36-year-old has twice finished in the top six at time trial world championships but was denied the chance to contest the event in Rio following his crash.

Tasmania’s other Olympic cyclist Georgia Baker is preparing for her assault on the boards, where she is listed to contest both the team pursuit and madison.

Qualifying for the team pursuit is on Monday, August 2, with round one and finals a day later. The madison is a straight final on Friday, August 6.