Richie Porte proved that he is a very capable captain for Sky when he finished fourth in today's first mountain stage of the Tour de France. The Australian was pleased with the outcome on the final climb whose explosive nature didn't suit him.

 

Richie Porte jumped up the Tour de France leaderboard with a gutsy climbing performance on stage eight in the Vosges.

 

The Tasmanian dug deep on the final climb in Gerardmer to peg the gap to rivals Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali and elevate himself into third place overall.

 

Porte now sits one minute and 58 seconds behind the yellow jersey of Nibali (Astana) after measuring his efforts well on the summit finish, crossing the line fourth, four seconds behind the Italian and seven back on Contador.

 

It was Contador who drove onwards through the rain on the climb of La Mauselaine, taking advantage of the pace-setting from his Tinkoff-Saxo squad to take a few seconds out of Nibali on the line. Porte kept the lead pair in sight but significantly a number of his key rivals fell away in the closing metres after three tough climbs in quick succession.

 

The battle for the general classification played out behind the fight for the stage win as Blel Kadri (Ag2r-La Mondiale) pushed clear of his fellow escapees, holding off the chasing pack to the tune of 2:17 on his way to the victory and the polka dot jersey.

 

Geraint Thomas crashed on the slick descent off the Col de Grosse Pierre but was able to remount with only minor skin loss and still occupies 15th overall. Mikel Nieve also continued his consistent race, finishing just off the lead group to sit 18th on GC.

 

After the stage Porte admitted: “I’m happy with how that went. It’s not really my bread and butter that short, sharp (climbing).

 

“It puts me in quite a good position. I’m a little bit behind those guys on that type of terrain but maybe on the longer climbs I’ll be a bit better.

 

“(Tinkoff-Saxo) are riding like Sky usually do. They were good today. It’s a little bit hard for Astana. They’ve had the jersey for almost a week now. We’ll just see how the next couple of days are.”