Double delight in Denmark

Porte finished the 13.2km afternoon time trial in 15 minutes and nine seconds to win the fifth stage ahead of his Saxo Bank- Sungard teammate Gustav Larsson, who was 10sec off the pace, and Sky’s Alex Dowsett, who finished 17sec behind the race winner.

The 26-year-old Porte entered the six-stage race on the back of his first Tour de France where he rode in support of Alberto Contador as he also did successfully at the Giro d’Italia in May.

Gerrans impressed in the race against the clock finishing fifth, one second ahead of Australian national road champion Jack Bobridge (Garmin-Cervelo) in sixth, to extend his lead ahead of tonight’s final 162.4km stage to Frederiksberg.

“That was a very impressive time trial today for Simon. A good day to say the least," said Sky sports director Marcus Ljungqvist.

“He’d been going really good of course but with the leader’s jersey on your shoulders you tend to get some morale from that and he went faster. So together with great shape and good legs he pulled it off. It was a really nice one.

“Alex did a really good ride today too to get third. The same with the other guys and having the jersey lifts the whole team. It’s fantastic and we have a lead in the team classification too."

The 2008 Tour de France stage winner Gerrans now has an eight second advantage over Daniele Bennati (Leopard Trek) and a 26sec margin over Michael Mørkøv (Saxo Bank – Sungard) after securing the race lead on Friday.

Matti Breschel (Rabobank) lost time in the penultimate time trial stage to slump from second overall to 13th and 1:33 behind race leader Gerrans.

The final stage features a lap of the course that will be used at the 2011 UCI road world championships in Copenhagen next month.

The peloton started the day with a 111km morning road stage, which Sacha Modolo (Colnago - CSF Inox) won from Jure Kocjan (Team Type 1 – Sanofi) and Bennati.

“The thing is there are bonus seconds in the sprint tomorrow so I’m sure the Leopard guys will try and get those for Bennati. But we have some strong sprinters too and we will do what we can to make sure he doesn’t get any bonus seconds – that’s for sure," Ljungqvist said.

“The morning stage just turned out perfectly for us as well. We were on the front controlling the race but the break turned out to be a dangerous group which other teams did not want to get away so we did not have to expend all our energy.

“The main thing now is to take the jersey for Simon tomorrow but this has been a really good race for us whatever happens.”



Stage five results

1. Richie Porte (Aus) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:15:09, 2. Gustav Larsson (Swe) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:00:10, 3. Alex Dowsett (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:00:17, 4. Rasmus Christian Quaade (Den) Team Concordia Forsikring - Himmerland 0:00:24, 5. Simon Gerrans (Aus) Sky Procycling 0:00:29, 6. Jack Bobridge (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:00:30, 7. Daniele Bennati (Ita) Leopard Trek 0:00:31, 8. Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek 0:00:35, 9. Grischa Niermann (Ger) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:00:37, 10. Damien Gaudin (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:41. 

Overall standings

1. Simon Gerrans (Aus) Sky Procycling 15:44:13, 2. Daniele Bennati (Ita) Leopard Trek 0:00:08, 3. Michael Mørkøv (Den) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:00:26, 4. Damien Gaudin (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:30, 5. Alex Dowsett (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:00:38, 6. Dario David Cioni (Ita) Sky Procycling 0:00:46, 7. Jerome Cousin (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:54, 8. Daniele Colli (Ita) Geox-TMC 0:00:55, 9. Zico Waeytens (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen - Mercator 0:01:10, 10. Sébastien Turgot (Fra) Team Europcar 0:01:11.