Richie Porte has his first victory as a BMC rider when he won the fifth stage of the Santos Tour Down Under.
As usual, this was the big penultimate stage of the race where anything could happen and stage five from McLaren Vale was one that finished with a climb up to Willunga Hill, a hill that had to be climbed twice.
Simon Gerrans of Orica GreenEdge, was in the lead for this 151.5km, thanks to his last victories in the last two stages and Gerrans who had a fourteen second lead over Jay McCarthy and only thirty six seconds over the top ten, led out the riders who were sent on their way by UCI President Brian Cookson.
Straight away, there were attacks but none were able to stick.
Through Willunga and a turn which saw them head out to the beach for the first of three laps, the peloton was all together.
With 137.1km, there was a crash involving LottoNL-Jumbo rider Primoz Roglic and Astana's Arman Kamyshev whilst up the front, Lars Boom failed with another attack.
Sean Lake took to the front before Pim Ligthart of Lotto Soudal, Lars Boom of Astana, Nelson Oliverira of Movistar and Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg of Dimension Data sneaked clear and took a lead of 25 seconds.
After Roglic abandoned the race, the quartet rode past Aldinger Beach and opened up a lead of 4.20 as Pim Ligthart took the first sprint at Snapper Point after 63.4km.
The lead went out to 6.06 after sixty kilometres and was still at six minutes when Pim Ligthart took the second sprint.
Giant Alpecin, Astana and Trek Segafredo took turns on the front and the gap started to fall dropping to 3.11 as the four up front started on Old Wullinga Hill for the first time.
Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg attacked the lead group and he was first over the climb with 22kms left but Lars Boom came out of the peloton and chased them down and with just under four kilometres to go, the race was back together.
Team Sky sent Peter Kennaugh to the front before Simon Clarke and Lucas Hamilton put in fruitless attacks.
With a kilometre to go, Richie Porte of BMC made his move and he was followed by the KOM leader Sergio Henao of Team Sky. Porte had too much in the tank and he took the win in a time of 3:34:16, finishing six seconds quicker than Henao and nine seconds faster than third placed Michael Woods.of Cannondale.
The race leader Simon Gerrans came home and he had done enough to keep the Ochre jersey going into the final stage with a lead of nine seconds over Richie Porte.
"To be honest I never expected that one," Richie Porte said about his victory. "Obviously it didn’t go to plan yesterday with a time gap on the line but then today the BMC guys were absolutely incredible. They backed me here which is nice and I’ve only just started in this team. It’s always nice to win in Australia and on top of Willunga it’s three in a row.
“The crowds are just incredible. The Australian public get behind this race so much. It does feel like riding the Tour de France up this climb, it’s an incredible feeling. I’m happy with how it’s gone. I didn’t target this race so it’s just nice to get the first win in the BMC jersey.
“Full credit to Rohan. He said yesterday that he didn’t have great legs and was willing to sacrifice himself. He’s been a brilliant teammate this week and to be honest the whole BMC crew has been fantastic. It’s not easy to change teams. BMC has really supported me and embraced me and I’m really happy.”