Richie Porte's painful title near-miss in the Criterium du Dauphine may yet have a silver lining for the Tour de France.
A frustrated Porte says his BMC Racing team received a useful lesson on Sunday as he was isolated and left to chase after being put under siege by Tour rivals, who he believed preferred someone else won the key lead-up race.
After starting the challenging 115km final stage from Albertville in south-east France with a lead of just over one minute, the Australian was overhauled atop the leaderboard by Dane Jakob Fuglsang to finish runner-up by just 10 seconds.
Astana rider Fuglsang attacked on the final climb to the Plateau de Solaison.
With likes of three-time and reigning Tour de France champion Chris Froome (Team Sky), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Fabio Aru (Astana) attacking, Porte had lost ground on the penultimate ascent on the Col de la Colombiere.
"I know my form is there and of course it would have been nice to finish it off today, but it's definitely good signs for the Tour de France," Porte said.
"It's bitterly disappointing to lose it by such a small margin but credit to Jakob Fulgsang."
He took plenty of encouragement from having bested some big Tour contenders three weeks out from the year's biggest race.
"Obviously those guys didn't want my teammates to come back and every time they were close they would keep attacking," Porte told Cyclingnews.
"In the end there were only so many attacks that I could cover myself but it might have been handy to have had a teammate or two on the Col and then in the valley.
"We learnt a lesson today but there's good signs for July that I'm climbing well and that teams want to gang up on me to put me out of the race.
"That's their strategy. I can't say that they were trying to win the race but trying to make me lose the race perhaps ... C'est la vie."
"Quick-Step rider Daniel Martin of Ireland was third overall more than a minute behind Porte, while Froome finished fourth around 90 seconds off the pace.
Last year's Tour runner-up Romain Bardet of France ended up sixth, showing good form on the climbs after a disappointing time trial earlier this week.
Spain's Alberto Contador, a twice Tour champion, cracked on the final ascent and finished 11th overall.
The Tour de France starts on July 1 from Dusseldorf, Germany.
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